


To live my life extended

by dreforall



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, I Don't Even Know, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sibling Incest, Twincest, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension, What Ifs, What Was I Thinking?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-07-08
Packaged: 2017-12-03 11:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 51,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreforall/pseuds/dreforall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Lyanna did not die?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The ghost and the lion

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from, but since I read [soapboxblues](http://archiveofourown.org/users/soapboxblues/pseuds/soapboxblues)'s [the ghosts won't matter cause we'll hide in sin](http://archiveofourown.org/works/472905), the plot bunny was there. This will be a long, multi-chaptered work, I think, but don't expect a lot - I'm still new at this you guys. Title comes from Muse's Unintended because I suck at naming things.

She hated that Robert assigned the Lannister boy to be her guard.

Part of it was the implied insult, to set a kingslayer and oathbreaker to guard the unfaithful and untrustworthy woman. She wondered whether the insult was meant for her, for him, or for both. She would have suspected the latter if she did not know Robert incapable of such subtlety.

That was not why she hated it, though. She was no man to be so easily offended and she _had_ done terrible, dishonorable things, to hear the other women speak. Oh, she was abducted – that was the official story, that she was a victim. Rhaegar was as mad as his sire and had stolen her in the night, raped her and locked her in a tower for his own amusement. That was Robert’s version of events, the words he believed in, she was sure, chanted every night as he made use of her body, the words she had not bothered to deny, the words that kept her alive and a queen rather than discarded and shamed and doubtlessly shunted to some lowborn lordling.

Yet that was not the story in the women’s minds, their eyes. She supposed women knew better. They knew the truth, even if they would never say it to her face, to their husband, to _her_ husband, fearing to be accused of treason, of slander.

They knew she was not a victim. They knew that Rhaegar was not mad (they were wrong on this; he was, just not like that, nowhere like Aerys) or a rapist. Lyanna did not have the strength – or the humility – to pretend she was when she was not.

No, it was not because of his stained reputation that she hated this slight of Robert’s.

It was because she enjoyed her walks in the gardens and when he stood behind her, a respectable distance, when the light caught him just so, as to obscure his eyes and make his hair even brighter than usual –

The Red Keep’s gardens were full of ghosts and she could not walk them for seeing _him_ in every shadow. Seeing him playing his harp under that tree, or running down that open walk; mayhap singing with his brother and sister by that bench, chasing tadpoles on that fountain, suckling on his mother’s teat by that particularly beautiful arch.

Here was where her silver prince was born, where he grew from a quiet and demure toddler to a solemn child, before being sent to Dragonstone. To imagine him grow into the young man she knew, strong and vigorous as he was –

To see Jaime Lannister, splendid in his white armor, every inch the lord he was and the prince he should have been –

Sometimes her breath caught, she choked, almost called, _Rhaegar?_

Rhaegar’s armor was black.

Then the illusion would break and she would be left cold and alone, a prisoner however gilded her cage was, and she would ask why: why had Tywin Lannister not taken the throne, or Ned, they who were far better men (well, not Tywin, but he was better at this, this ruling business that was so unlike Robert); why did her lover have to die while she lived without him; why did Robert not cast her aside, as he should have, taken the boy’s twin as his mate, as he was advised to; why did he not banish the lion cub to the Wall, as he should have, oathbreaker and kingslayer that he was; why had she lied, when she could have been defiant and died anyway; why Robert, a stranger to her, Robert who knew her not, loved her so.

_Rhaegar believed in fate._

It was prophecy that brought him to her, not love, whatever romantic tales she wove in her mind. _She_ loved him, wild and fierce and stubborn as only she could be, a stupid, stupid girl living in a song that could never be and never was. They did not name her she-wolf by accident or her father’s colors alone.

(These days she was labeled wolf-bitch, but only where no prying ears could hear.

She heard them all the same.)

Perhaps it was fate, then, that brought her there.

The Lannister boy knew the effect he had on her, though he perhaps did not know why. He was no fool, however chivalrous he pretended to be, however proud and defiant he was, so unlike his devious little brother, so unlike his much colder father. She could admire that in him, because it was so much like her in a way and they were the same age but she could not – would not – think of him as anything but _boy._

He was raised to the Kingsguard the same day she was proclaimed Queen of Love and Beauty.

It meant nothing, but she could not help think it did.

_Rhaegar believed in fate, and maybe he put more into you than just his cock._

Maybe there was a connection there, but then, maybe there was not; and there he was, flashing like the gold of his colors, the pristine white of his cloak snapping around his feet as he went to her, damn him for being alive when her prince, her Rhaegar, was not, and that arrogant curl to his mouth that made her want to slap him.

Or kiss him.

It would not be the same, but at least, it would be closer than dark-haired, blue-eyed Robert.

It was unfair of her to think such things of him when he loved her – and he did, after a fashion, like one loves a song, or a favorite dish, or a trinket one favors. He loved her for what she meant, not for what she was. He did not love being king, but he had no choice on the matter and maybe his vision of her would rust and tarnish with time, but it hadn’t yet.

“Your Grace,” he said, calm as ever.

“Kingslayer,” she said, just as coolly.

“Shall we?” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she sighed and stood and did not offer either arm or hand. She was the queen, yes, because the war was fought for her (it wasn’t. It was for Lord Rickard Stark, her father, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, and Brandon Stark, her brother and the heir, for Aerys’s madness that had them murdered, for Rhaegar’s madness and his insane belief in a prophecy – but of course, as the only survivor, the fault fell on her shoulders and she knew, she _knew_ , that there was no living soul who did not resent her at least a little).

They went, slow and sedate, keeping pace even though she went ahead and him behind, a synchronized dance between them, damn him and his laughing eyes and the way he would sometimes consider her, cool and assessing and every inch Tywin’s son, if only for a moment.

“His Grace the King wants you,” he said and she wanted to claw his eyes out for the double entendre. “Important news, or so I’m told.”

“Oh?” she said, coolly even though the fire underneath her skin kept on burning. Damn Rhaegar and his fire; she could not hate him, even now, though she swung between love and hate of him so often it made her head swim.

“Something about the North,” he said, airily enough that it put her on high alert. _This is not good._ “Something about your brother and Jon Arryn’s death.”

“Oh?”

Interested now, just the way he wanted her, damn him to the seven hells and back!

She spun, turned to him, his handsome face, his arrogant smile and the cool assessing look in his eyes.

“Something about inviting your brother to be his Hand of the King.”

She did not slap him then, but it was a near thing.


	2. A lioness and a she-wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Cersei Lannister.

Cersei Lannister hated her. Just as well, because she should _._ For different reasons, maybe, but she should.

She had robbed Cersei from her destiny twice, though she had no way of knowing the first and had no real choice on the second.

(She robbed Cersei three times – but she did not know about the third. Not then, anyway.)

The first time was because Cersei fancied herself in love with Rhaegar – her and every young maiden in the Seven Kingdoms, Lyanna included, but Cersei, like her twin, was proud and born with an arrogance unwarranted to them. Every maiden in the Seven Kingdoms was not Cersei Lannister and every maiden in the Seven Kingdoms did not have Cersei’s ambition: she hated and she raged and she resented Lyanna for taking the kingdom, the Silver Prince, from her, even though she never had him in the first place.

It amused Lyanna because she was so very like Robert in that. She knew not Rhaegar, only the idea of him, the desire of him and what he meant: he was a symbol to the Lioness of Lannister, just as she was a symbol to Robert.

It was Cersei’s own brother (the younger, shrewd one, the one she liked, not the one she, against her better sense, hated for no reason at all) who told her why: that she had loved Rhaegar, that she fancied herself a future queen. It amused Lyanna because if anyone had the right, the true, honest right to hate her, it was the Martells, and she was quite sure they did. The Daynes too, and Jon Connington, wherever he was, and most of the Seven Kingdoms, including her own family.

The second time was when Robert took Lyanna to wife even though he should not.

Tywin Lannister was no fool. He was not blinded by arrogance. He knew Robert was far from a faithful, dutiful husband. Oh, he did his duty to his wife _very_ well: he took her and he bedded her, planted children that never quickened in her womb, oddly enough, when she was proven fertile and so was he. Lyanna knew of the bastards, after all. There was even a sweet one, a strong honest one, sitting there in Flea Bottom, and a newborn babe still on her whore-mother's teat.

(It certainly has nothing to do with the tea she imbibed every morning and that she would insist was good for her health, both physical and mental.)

Hence why he planted her by Lyanna’s side, his scheming little lioness cub. Mistresses had as much sway in their lover’s minds as queens, after all, and wives could be cast aside if proof of their wrongdoing was found.

(And what Tywin had not counted on was that she was _Lyanna_ ; and that Robert, flawed as he was, would not sully her already battered, dinted and soiled honor by taking a mistress under her very eyes, certainly not one of her own ladies. He loved her, for all the good that it did him, which was none.)

Hence why, when that plan failed, he married her to a man who had as much cause to hate Lyanna's very existence as Cersei herself did. A man who may not object to underhanded tactics, if necessary, when the time was ripe.

Hence why Lyanna watched Cersei, stiff and straight as the queen she thought she should have been as they made their slow tedious way to Winterfell. King Robert had taken a large retinue with him; Lyanna was forced to go with the women, rather than ride as she was used to, as she preferred to. She could be pregnant, was his reasoning. He would not risk his heir to abide to his own wife’s wishes.

Hence why Cersei watched her right back, cool and collected and so very lovely, so very much like her twin. She knew that Cersei hated her for many reasons, but no more so than Oberyn Martell hated her, though it was not her fault that the Lannisters decided to butcher the Prince’s wife and children the way they had.

If only Rhaegar won;

But Rhaegar believed in fate, and she wondered whether some part of him expected his own death, went willingly into its arms.

She wondered whether he, from Hell or from Heaven or from nowhere at all, was disappointed that she did not follow him into the abyss.

Whether he knew that she had. Sure as anything, she had.

Whether he even cared; he never loved her, after all.


	3. Snow, storm, sand and Blackfyre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the Starks and Jon Snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: how could I forget Bran! I love him!

It hurt to see Ned like that, loving as always – he was always such a serious, considerate boy, solemn and honorable and everything that Lyanna and Brandon and even Benjen weren’t. Still, he was her brother, her sweet brother, and it hurt to see the coolness in his smile when he welcomed her and embraced her, heart to heart, and she half-expected to be young and undefiled as she once was, and to see Brandon smile and Benjen welcome her home.

Sometimes she wondered whether he regretted rescuing her at all; whether he wished he had managed to rescue Elia instead. It was absurd – her brother loved her – but his disappointment, the faint frown when he saw her, was worse than a knife through the heart.

Oh, he welcomed her well enough, as did his lovely redheaded wife. Catelyn Tully was another person to hate her, just another name among many, so many it did not bother Lyanna anymore. She understood why. She had caused Brandon’s death, the kingdom to be torn apart. She forsook the very same things that the Tullys held so dear: family, duty, honor.

She dishonored herself for a dream, for a dragon prince.

(She was four and ten at the time, with a head full of songs. It did not matter.)

She forsook her duty to Robert for him.

(He was a stranger to her, a known philanderer, a drunk, loud, brash and terrifying to a young girl from the north, and so very unlike the melancholy, sorrowful man she gave herself to. It did not matter.)

She killed her family for him, albeit indirectly.

(Brandon had always been brash, impulsive and reckless, much like her. He marched without thinking to threaten a mad king’s son and heir, knowing full well the king was mad. It did not matter.)

Ned resented her. She knew, because she saw it in his eyes. Mayhap he would not, had she died at the Tower of Joy, the way they half-expected her to. She’d been so very young, but she was made of stronger, sterner stuff than they thought.

The entire world seemed to simultaneously hate and underestimate Lyanna Stark. For surviving, for being young, for being stupid, for being seduced away.

The entire world could not hate her more than Lyanna Stark hated herself. For surviving, for being young, for being stupid, for being seduced away.

Ned resented her because of a dark-haired boy with gray eyes and _that_ was more than she could bear, to see him like that, lingering around the edges, half-shy, half-bold, all melancholy, after a fashion, and all bitter, just like his father.

His father, who was not Ned, had never been Ned, however much they looked alike when side-by-side. The boy so unlike his trueborn brothers, all redheads like their lady mother.

Robb Stark was a handsome lad, bold and energetic and a perfect blend of Brandon’s easy smiles and Ned’s honorable manners, very much his lady mother’s son. Sansa Stark, lovely and demure and such a lady already, the way she had dimples when she smiled, every inch her lady mother’s daughter. Rickon Stark, so young still and vulnerable, peering shyly from behind his mother’s legs. Brandon 'Bran' Stark, thoughtful and playful, every inch the young knight, so much like Benjen.

The four of them redheaded and blue-eyed as their lady mother, all proper lords (and lady) of Winterfell under the veneer of Tully beauty.

Theon Greyjoy, young and arrogant already with the smirk and the lopsided smile, who reminded her of a meaner, lost Brandon, her brother’s ward watching her with unabashed curiosity – bold as ever and, even though he did not know, a Greyjoy and an Ironborn to the very end.

Arya Stark who made her heart falter for a moment, she was so familiar. Arya Stark who could have been her at that young age. The same long face, the same gray eyes, the same dark hair, the same air of discomfort at being forced to play a lady before them, the southron strangers, the queen and the king with his loud laughter and easy hugs and slaps to the back, all for Ned.

Jon Snow, who should have been Jon Storm. Mayhap Sand.

Mayhap Blackfyre?

Mayhap: Jon Targaryen.

Jon Snow was nothing like his father.

Her legs did not give beneath her. She did not cry. She did not even hesitate, as she welcomed them. She had learned this at court and elsewhere, how to wear indifference and gentility as a weapon, she who would have lamented that she was not born a man so she could play at swords and spar as her brothers did, joust and compete in tourneys and fight in wars rather than breed and sew and do her needlepoint and giggle.

(She suspected this a sentiment echoed in Cersei Lannister and Arya Stark both – for different reasons, but so alike, the three of them, in this at least.

The irony of her eventual fate was not lost on her.)

So she locked the screaming hysterical woman inside of her, barred her mind’s doors and gagged her screams, and smiled at them and welcomed Catelyn as a sister and ignored the way the redhead’s lips thinned and the way young Theon seemed to assess her, to wonder whether she was worth the effort to rip a kingdom apart to have.

(She wasn’t; she had never been a great beauty, never a maid with a demure smile and a shy look or voluptuous curves or a cut figure. Perhaps why Rhaegar took her, rather than Ashara Dayne or any of the great beauties of the time.

But no, she knew why. She always did.

 _The song of ice and fire, Lyanna, can't you see?_ )

She greeted them and when they sat for the feast she jested and she ate and she held the pretension that all was well, that the screaming woman inside, the one who wanted to die and didn’t, who railed and seethed and clawed at her face and tore at her hair and her clothes, the woman who wanted her son, her lover, her life, back, was not there.


	4. Direwolves at the Wall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Benjen Stark, and Lyanna frets for her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Just for the record, I'm literally posting this as I write and have not the faintest clue where I'm going - I'm literally making it up as I go along, as you can probably tell ;) Updates will not be near as fast during the week, by the by - I work! Also, this will be more character oriented than action oriented, just so you know.
> 
> Edit: I changed a little of Benjen and Lyanna's dialogue, to clarify a little why is better to Jon to be at the Wall rather than at, say, the Red Keep with his mum.

She watched them play at swords, Arya and Bran; this time the pain in her chest was sweet. Their wolf cubs watched them from the sidelines, sitting on their haunches or scratching themselves.

“Memories?” he asked, a hand resting on the small of her back, and she smiled.

“How could I not?” she said, leaning into him just a little.

“You pushed me into the pool,” he pouted and she laughed; the children below did not notice.

“I was better than you,” she grinned and he swatted at her, as she knew he would. She could not help it. She loved Brandon for his boldness and there was a deep abiding love and respect for Ned’s quiet ways, but it was Benjen who always made her happy when she was down, whom she loved and was loved by in return. Perhaps the only man who knew her – who loved her for herself.

“Probably still are,” he said, but she knew it was not true: Benjen was a man of the Wall, a hardened warrior now, and she had grown soft over time. She did not have anyone to play at swords with her, not anymore, and it was not _proper_ of a queen to be seen in the training grounds, whacking at things with wood swords like a man.

Not that she did not want to, but her aggression would out, eventually, and it did, through other ways.

He held her, arms around her waist, and it was sweet, the fresh scent of pine and snow in him. Something wild, something clean and so unlike the polluted, strangled ground of King’s Landing. She burrowed against him, his soft tunic and broad chest, and sighed.

They watched the children as they dissolved into laughter when Arya hit Bran, hard, upon the arm, making him drop his practice sword, watched them as it went from practice to common brawl, both laughing so loud they could be heard all the way from where their uncle and aunt observed them.

“I’m taking Jon to the Wall,” he said and her complacency, the easy rest, drained away.

_“What?”_

Some part of her never understood why Benjen would do such a thing as take the black. Some part of her felt betrayed that he would leave her thus; but as time went by and her womb remained seemingly barren, she understood.

Winter was coming and it was better to be removed from the picture at the Wall than become a pawn to be bartered and traded and shoved around. Were she able to, she would have.

“You can’t. You – you can’t, Benjen, he’s just a child, he –”

Before she knew she’d spun in his arms, pushed him away – almost lost her balance, slipped and fell. He caught her by the waist, tugged her upright. She was panting, flushed.

Her son, her beautiful, scarcely known son, but she could feel him, their bond, thrumming under her skin, how could she not after everything, after the pain and the fever and the winter roses, her beautiful son alone in the harsh reality of the Wall…

“He is four and ten and a bastard, Lyanna,” he said, quiet, but she could hear the steel in his voice and she knew he had made up his mind – and probably Jon’s, too. “He is growing to be a man, and he has no place here. You saw it. Better he go to the Wall, where his lineage won't matter, than stay here and be an outcast forever.”

“I could take him -”

“You could,” he cut, not unkindly. “And he would still be Ned's bastard. The queen's nephew, yes, but a bastard. He has no place in our world, no more than you did. You know that.”

Oh, she did, and never did guilt feel so harsh as when she saw the way Catelyn regarded him coolly, how markedly different was her treatment of him. Never Ned; he loved the boy, she knew, but his wife was understandably upset.

Guilt because she knew Ned had never strayed (unlike, quite ironically, Catelyn’s first betrothed) and that all this grief between them was unwarranted. Guilt because he was _her_ son, _her_ bastard, and the four and ten boy she met in the godswood and the halls was nothing like the baby she held only briefly in her arms.

Ashara Dayne knew, wherever she was – whether heaven or hell or elsewhere she did not know.

Howland Reed knew, wherever he was – the man she once saved and who saved her in turn.

Rhaegar knew and he was dead, dead before his son was even born, the third head of the dragon that he thought to be a girl and was a boy just the same.

(Would he have tried again and again, had he lived, until she gave him a daughter to foist on Aegon and Rhaenys, his own Visenya?)

Ned knew, and he kept his promise even when the fever broke and she lived.

Robert did not know and could never know, not when she knew how he spat _dragon spawn_ whenever someone mentioned Daenerys and Viserys Targaryen.

“He is not your son, anyway,” he shrugged, her beloved Benjen who knew not the truth and could not know, how could he? The more people who knew, the more ways it could slip and spin out of control; she trusted Benjen even more than she trusted Ned, trusted him with all her might, but the time was not right, could not be right, not now.

Perhaps she was just cowardly; that was not it, though. She was a direwolf still, a woman of the North, and she would die before Robert harmed her son.

And he would. She knew he would.

Maybe it was for the best that he went to the Wall, beyond reach, beyond _her_ reach.

“He is not,” she sighed, feigned ignorance. “If Ned agrees…”

“He does, and so does the boy,” he grinned, but it faltered. “I never knew you liked children so much, Lyanna,” he teased and she narrowed her eyes; it was well known she’d dried out after losing Rhaegar’s bastard, a stillborn.

(Robert always blamed Rhaegar's inbred self for her firstborn's death, rather than some flaw in her, and she let him believe that, as she knew better. Many people, of course, blamed her. She cared little, but still, it amused her, how unwilling Robert was to see flaws in her.)

He seemed to notice his faux pas, flinched, but held her gaze just the same.

“I care for the boy, Benjen, is all,” she sighed. It was easy to care for Jon, even though she was – supposedly – only his aunt, an aunt who had never seen him before arriving at Winterfell.

It was hard not to care, when he was so melancholy, so quiet, and so – cowed, she thought, or bitter. So much like Rhaegar in that aspect, the mystique of him, even in such a young boy.

“I’m sure you do,” he said, softer now, and kissed her head, and she smiled, quiet, and let herself be held.


	5. The horned king

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Robert Baratheon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May I just take a moment to send a HUGE THANK YOU for all the comments and kudos and support? It's very encouraging to someone who has not the slightest clue what she's doing! So thank you guys, that means a lot to me!
> 
> On the I-have-not-a-clue-what-I'm-doing note, I changed chapter 2 a little to fix the tidbit about Cersei. It completely slipped my mind that about this time she'd be in her early thirties and thus would be highly unlikely to be unmarried (yeah, sometimes I forget that in medieval times being thirty is being an old person) and though I do not doubt Tywin would use her as a seductress, I do doubt he'd let her sit there and rot for so long and endanger his legacy. Therefore, I sort of retconned her into being married - to whom, you will see soon enough!
> 
> That is all for now, and enjoy the peace while it lasts! ;)

It would be simpler were Robert not such a good man. Then she would be free to hate him and blame him for what he had done to Rhaegar, to Elia, to Rhaenys and Aegon, to Rhaella, Daenerys and Viserys.

He was a good man, however. A deeply flawed man – who wasn’t? – but a good man nonetheless.

“This was your room when you were a child?” he rumbled, hands on her hips. She leaned back against his chest automatically.

“Yes,” she said, smiling. At him, because he was gentle; at the memory, because right there on that bed, was where she found Rhaegar’s first letter to her. Unsigned and with a different sigil, yes, but she knew it was his just the same.

She was still smiling when she felt his lips on her neck and his hands traveling up the line of her waist.

When they first married, Lyanna was determined to hate him. Then she grew up and learned more of the world and she was determined to love him.

She accomplished neither, but she did respect him, and that was enough.

“Maybe… maybe it will give us luck,” he said, unlacing her bodice. She let him.

He was kind to her. Considerate. He was charming and roguish, a proud, boisterous bull of a man when he was young. She’d liked him, against her better judgment, when they first met. Not enough to want to marry him or to stop her from loving Rhaegar, but she did like him. She could see why he was such a good friend to Ned.

“Maybe it will,” she said, though she knew it wouldn’t.

Very little had changed in the intervening years. He whored, though she knew not as much as he did before and only away from her. He drank, deeply and frequently, but not so much as to slip into complete incompetence. He heeded her when she admonished him; he cared not for running his kingdom and bankrupted it on tourneys and feasts, or would have if not for Petyr and Tywin, who should have been Hand for his skill alone, no matter how much she loved Ned and wished him well.

“Did he ever…?”

She did not need to hear it to know what he was asking.

 _“Here?_ Robert, not even Rhaegar was that insane! _”_ she laughed, because the very idea he would be able to sneak into Winterfell and seize her from her own bed was ridiculous.

(Her lord husband need not know Rhaegar took her maidenhead in the godswood, beneath the heart tree, after draping his cloak about her shoulders and sealing their union with a promise and a kiss. What Robert did not know did not harm him.)

Robert always touched her gently. Always handled her with great care, which simultaneously charmed and annoyed her. When she flinched he imagined it was because of the perversions she’d suffered under Rhaegar and soothed her fears, never knowing it was not fear that plagued her, only memories.

She stepped out of her winter dress, lovely in its simplicity. She always found it a _very_ effective way to shut whatever thought he had at the time.

It worked then as well as it always did, and she kissed him on the lips, chastely – a provocation.

He treated her as his ladylove, which she was. He rebuked her as he would a child, irritating her. They understood by tacit agreement that they were both stubborn and hot-tempered and would never agree on some things; he was a man, however, and the king, and she obeyed and relented and stewed in her bitterness.

She did not love her lord husband, which was just another flaw in the stained glass of imperfections that was Lyanna – Baratheon now, not Stark. Maybe once Targaryen, before the old gods.

That did not mean she did not like him, or that she suffered her duties. She liked him well enough.

_Pity, then, that I cannot love him._

One did not command one’s heart, she found.

After, brushing her hair before her old mirror, naked as when she was born and not caring, she watched him sleep through the reflection and smiled, just a little.


	6. Direwolves and the flying one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet a direwolf pup, and things happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapterlet for you.

The direwolf pup was anxious, shivering as it stared up the high tower wall.

_Pack,_ his nose told him. He knew the pack, of course, could tell who they were: his brothers and sisters scattered each with their own stranger-packmate – odd, but such was the way here, each with their own, each with each other – soft, strange, upright packmates, but pack nonetheless. He could see the black by his side, anxious, too nervous for the soft little one, escaping easily to the open air, where they belonged.

They were not so soft, these strange pups, smelling sometimes plantlike, sometimes beastlike, sometimes like land and flowers, and also like something intrinsically familiar which they called human; at least the flying one named themselves such, _human, people, master, family_ – sounds that meant little to the direwolf but that he ate up greedily, the way he understood the difference between cold land and dry land and white land implicitly and that the smell of certain leaves meant danger.

The humans made a lot of noise.

It did not matter, though, because his human, the flying one, was flying again, speedy like the small things from the south that smelt of tree and bark, and that made the wolf anxious, because it went up and it went up and it never came back; and something seized the wolf’s mind, made him whine, made the breath quicken in his lungs and he panted.

The flying one did not fly, after all. It fell, hard, in a flash of gold and the rich smell of powder and leather and metal and blood, but it did not make him slaver or want for food, no, it made him fear. The pack should stick together, human or wolf, and able, to survive, and the pup was terrified, but also somewhat - if he could - heartbroken.

He whined and went to the little master, the flying one who would fly no more, and licked his face, soft, and lay by his side, quiet, until the rest of the pack came.

His dark brother howled.

He waited.


	7. Direwolves are fierce...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Jaime Lannister and challenges are set and met.

He found her whacking at trees away enough from camp to not be seen by the women and men just then settling down for the night. Not that he would miss her, in any case: it was his duty to follow her around like a bloody nursemaid – at least she made for a prettier sight than Robert Baratheon, he’d grant her that.

So he went about in the shadows, unnoticed even in his less than discreet white cloak and armor, and watched her as she molested the wildlife.

Her work was – not bad, but it was not good, either. He could tell she was not practiced with a sword – which she was clearly emulating with what looked like a bare branch, little more than a stick – but she was not entirely _untrained_ , either, which roused his curiosity enough to keep him silent. Flailing around though she was, she did show at least some method, which was more than he would’ve expected from the Queen.

Or, he thought, from Eddard Stark’s sister. The man seemed _too_ honorable for his own good, too rooted on the old ways. Then again, he knew enough of Lyanna to know she was not cut from the same cloth as her brother.

(Then again, the man was not so stainless – he had a bastard, had he not? The same age as his heir, too. Perfect Eddard Stark was not so perfect, after all.)

Watching her play at swords, attacking the poor tree as if it had given her a personal offense…

Hard to believe such a woman was abducted and raped without raising holy hell or escaping on her own damn self. By Prince Rhaegar, no less, a man almost as uncomfortably honorable as her brother.

(Sometimes, though he would never admit to such a thing, he missed Rhaegar Targaryen and thought of his own what ifs – what if he was at the Trident, for one, what if Rhaegar lived, what if he saved his children...

What if he hadn’t killed Aerys – the one act for which he was not sorry?

Was he ever sorry, for anything he did? _Should_ he be? He was not sure he should.)

“Did you want anything, Lannister?”

Ah, spotted. Damn northerners and their eerie awareness of their surroundings.

“Your Grace,” he said, because it was polite and he was a Lannister of Casterly Rock, even if his tone was not; and because he liked the way she flinched every time he did it.

It was a terrible thing, to bait her like that.

Then again, to hear them talk, his entire life was a series of terrible deeds. Taking the white and therefore depriving his father of an heir, ending Aerys’s reign of terror, standing aside as he tortured and raped his queen, failing Rhaegar, failing everyone –

Even his sister.

Even his _twin_.

His sweet, sweet Cersei, whom he loved more than life itself, perched on that damned sand bastard’s lap as if she belonged there.

As if she wasn’t _his_.

He was not as stupid as his father and the others seemed to think he was, as even his sister seemed to think he was.

The lady Lyanna had stopped whacking at the tree while he was lost in thought, though, and leaning on her stick like some common shepherdess, glaring at him. He knew that look; she gave him that often enough to set his teeth on edge, the utter _audacity_ of it.

Perhaps he was not as wise as he thought.

“Your form is terrible. You should be glad that tree isn’t fighting back.”

Then again, she was not that wise, either.

“Oh?” he was overjoyed to see the way her eyes narrowed. Not seeing her paramour in him now, he would bet. He knew _that_ look too – rather preferred it, even. Better than the glares she gave him, as if she was somehow superior to him.

As if anyone believed that ridiculous sob story the King Stag paraded to attempt to salvage his royal cunt’s more than frayed honor.

“Would you show me better then, _ser_?” and while the words were polite enough there was no politeness in her tone, the way he could _feel_ her sneer at the title. He knew a challenge when he heard it and everything in her stance – the skirts tied so as to not trip her, the wild hair, the proud set of her shoulders – oozed defiance.

The wench dared to challenge him.

He should turn back. He should go back to camp, find Cersei.

(He thought of his sister sitting by that sand dog’s side, all smiles that should be _his._ )

Jaime Lannister was never known for his sense.


	8. ... but lions are bigger and stronger.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our characters bond by hitting each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit like the fic that sparked this whole mess, but: do you have any idea how hard it is to bring these two together?

_What in the ever loving fuck where you thinking?_

Clearly she wasn’t, otherwise she wouldn’t be on her back in the dirt with the pointed end of a branch pressing against the hollow of her throat.

_Such a dignified position for the Queen of Westeros, isn’t it, Lyanna?_

Father always said that temper was her worst flaw. She was hot-tempered and when her blood was up he hardly ever thought things through – a trait she’d shared with Brandon. Wolf-blood, they said. Sometimes it was for good, as when she saved Howland Reed from those cowardly squires by beating them soundly.

Then there was this and she swallowed the humiliation as she would some maester’s draughts.

She could  _feel_  his gloating over her and it made her have half a mind to knee him in the groin for it, but he was in armor and all she’d accomplish was hurting herself.

“Well,” he said, and she could hear the laughter in the back of his voice, though he kept the pretense of politeness for her rank’s sake. It grated even worse than it should, the sheer, utter hypocrisy of it. “As I said, were this a real fight, you’d be dead. Several times over, actually.”

She swallowed against the most unladylike curses rising to her mouth and nodded as graciously as if she was at court, because she’d be damned if she would give him even more to wound her with by being a sore loser.

Much.

Not that he didn’t already have enough to humiliate her with – what  _was_  she thinking, challenging one of the most skilled swordsmen in Westeros like some drunken sellsword?

It took next to no effort to send her to the dirt, too, which shouldn’t really injure her pride but did.

It didn’t help that when he leaned over her to peer at her face, no doubt wondering about her uncharacteristic silence or whether he’d actually injured anything more than her pride, she felt her entire body warm up – in a manner that wasn’t entirely explained by embarrassment.

Robert would kill her if he knew. Or be proud of her, she was never sure.

More likely he’d be terribly amused and laugh at her and then she’d have to hit him.

“I joust better than I play at swords,” she said with great dignity, sniffing, and pushing the stick off her throat – he hadn’t let her go, to his credit.

 _That_  at least was true: she remembered that episode well enough and it still brought her a liquid sort of satisfaction to remember their faces as she admonished the lords on teaching their squires better. Rhaegar never found her, only her shield. Sometimes when they were together she wondered whether he knew it’d been her and purposefully let her escape – but as she grew and her insight of the world grew with her, she thought he probably didn’t.

(It took her a long time to let go of her childish delusions and see him for what he was rather than as the demigod she’d fancied him to be.)

“Shall we prove  _that_  claim in King’s Landing, then?” he said, flashing her that winsome smile that she particularly liked (and hated) because it ruined any semblance he had to her dead lover (and because it didn't take anything from how attractive he was, damn him). It was a challenge, she knew it and fool that she was she rose to it.

“Deal,” she said and felt herself, to  _their_ never ending shock, smile back.

Then he was standing over her again, holding a hand out for her – unexpectedly chivalrous, but he  _was_  a Lannister and a knight of the Kingsguard and she supposed that to him both of these things were very good qualities to have and honor.

She stood, brushed dry leaves and dirt from her skirts and from the bodice of her simple gown. It was her luck it was dry; it would not do to return to camp covered in mud. It was bad enough to be dusty and disheveled as she was.

Yet she was – relaxed wasn’t quite the proper word, not with her shoulder hurting fiercely from where it hit the ground hard as she fell. No, it was not relaxation, but it was… soothing. A certain calmness, she thought, to the raging storm inside.

Of course, then he had to ruin it – like he ruined everything.

“What  _did_  get into you, to make you whack at trees?”

And just like that the tension she’d felt drain out returned full force and she spun on her heels and left before she did anything even more unwise than what she’d already done.


	9. Winter is coming (sort of)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the small council, and have a small revelation.

Robert Baratheon, first of his name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, was bored.

This was not unusual. He often left the ruling of the realm to the far more capable hands of his small council and his Hand – currently a very sour looking Eddard Stark. It was no secret that Robert was not cut to be king: he was a warrior first and foremost and out of the battlefield or the practice yard (or his lady wife’s bed) he felt particularly… not empty, no. Lost was perhaps the better word. Trapped.

He could not say he regretted his actions, as it had given him Lyanna, which was more grace than he’d ever expected from the gods and for whom he would have done a lot more and a lot worse than what he’d done – this he knew without a doubt. Sometimes, however, he really did wish it was someone else to sit the Iron Throne – Ned, for one, or Jon Arryn… good honest Jon Arryn, now gone… even the Lannister whelp himself, absurd though that idea was.

(Well, maybe not the Lannister whelp.)

 _For Lyanna, for Brandon, for Lord Rickard Stark_ : that had been his mantra throughout the battles, throughout all the hardship he’d endured, the words he used to justify the slaughters and the deaths of so many, the words that kept him going when many would have stopped. _Ours is the fury_ had never been more right than when Robert heard of Brandon and Rickard’s death and why. Lyanna’s face, in his mind’s eye contorted in terror under that dragon bastard – that silver-haired worm – the cries he now knew so well turned fearful, turned pained…

It was enough to make his blood boil all over again, his palm itch for his war hammer.

Robert Baratheon had killed many men, many young, many old, many green boys, but he had never felt such pleasure in the act as when his hammer sunk through Rhaegar Targaryen’s black, shriveled heart, a pleasure comparable only to having Lyanna mewling his name in pleasure, to watching her sleep peacefully with her cheek on his chest. To the sense of triumph when he stood across from her in the Great Sept of Baelor and said his vows and draped his cloak around her shoulders.

“Your Grace?”

It was Ned’s voice.

Oh, he knew what they spoke of, even if he hadn’t been listening – it was an argument they had over and over for the last fifteen years and, as far as he was concerned, he would have forever.

“I will not set aside my wife.”

It was the same answer he always gave and he could see the effects ripple through the gathered lords, the same way it always did. Petyr Baelish grimaced and nodded and conceded defeat only to try again at a later time. Oberyn Martell only snorted as if Robert was a fool, the turncloak, as if he would do better than ruin a kingdom for the sake of a woman, as if the damned snake knew anything of love, as if _he_ didn’t have three strong trueborn heirs, two boys and a girl. Grandmaester Pycelle, as usual, dozed through the whole meeting and only echoed whatever Martell said like a trained bird – oh, he’d dress it up in fine words and the good of the kingdom and admonish Robert on his duties as a king, but the end meaning was the same.

The three of them always in favor that he set his wife aside – even Jon Arryn, Stranger take him, had wanted Robert to annul his marriage and remarry for the sake of the kingdom.

(And what did Robert want with a kingdom, if he did not have her?)

Barristan Selmy was of course in favor of Lyanna; as well he should be, as she was the only reason he’d been spared and elevated to his current position. She’d asked him and he saw no reason to deny. The man was a good fighter, after all, and noble, and would do him no good at the Wall.

Surprisingly, so was Varys – always with words such as _oh, the queen is young, and so healthy, she may bear children still_ , and, _such a sweet girl, has already suffered so much_ – and Stannis never said anything, concerned himself not with such issues; his brother had no male heir for himself and had not set his wife aside, even though there was no love between them.

Ned, however. Ned, whom he loved over his own brothers, the traitor, looked divided.

He’d been the first to tell Robert to let her go. That she was not queen material, that he didn’t know her at all, that she’d suffered too much... as if he could do anything after being in love with her for so long, after tearing through the Seven Kingdoms for her. He needn’t know her; his heart knew best.

He could tell, watching Ned’s reaction to his small council, the unspoken _I told you so_ in his eyes. It infuriated Robert that _even now_ , even his _best friend…_

Of course he would not speak a word on his sister, would not speak to dishonor her, but he could tell, he could fucking _tell_ , that were she not his sister… but no, Ned was far too honorable, would not abide setting a woman aside because she failed to bear children. Maybe then Ned would find some way; some solution to this dilemma, because though he did not want to set her aside, _would_ never, it was true that his succession was imperiled.

He understood it not at all. He had so many bastards, knew he did, healthy, strong sons and daughters from his blood, he could not see why –

“Plotting treason behind my back, my lords?”

The tone was light enough, spoken in jest, even. There was humor in it, a black sort he had never expected from her.

He saw the light in her eyes, the steel and the ice in them. Lyanna’s eyes were gray, same as her brother’s, and they were harsh and solemn as the threat as their words. _Winter is coming_ , indeed.

She rarely concerned herself with matters of state, hardly attended the meetings of the small council; as a woman she was not expected to, but he knew she kept abreast just the same, advised him when she thought she ought, and he knew that she knew what they spoke of her. That she should be set aside, should never have been his in the first place, always forgetting that if she wasn’t he would have nothing.

(The first time he told her what they said, over ten years ago, she’d looked him in the eye, solemn as her brother could be and said _you should._ )

They did not bother to deny; he had not expected them to.

“Ah,” she said and smiled, calm and cold and as distant as the moon. “I blame you not, for thinking what you think. I agree. The kingdom needs a heir, one I have not been able to provide.”

They were watching her now, all of them, even the Red Viper who would see her dead for his sister’s unfortunate end. Under other circumstances he would have laughed, boasted how his fierce little wife had silenced the lords who fancied themselves rulers of the kingdom – but he could not, not when he registered her words.

He felt his blood run cold and then hot, when she turned to him.

She strode over to him. In her simple gray and white dress, hair wild around her shoulders, she never looked more a queen, he realized.

“Your Grace,” she said and fell into a curtsy that was so unlike her but that made him want to push her to the wall and fuck her right there.

“Fear no more,” was all she said.

It took him a second and another to understand what she meant.

Then he was kissing her, long and hard, to the stunned silence of his small council, and she was smiling against his lips, and all was well again.


	10. A tourney for the Hand and the littlest direwolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we have a tourney.

She should not be surprised that he wanted a tourney, in her brother’s and the unborn babe’s honor, not that anyone knew of his (or her) existence. They’d been sworn to silence; Robert thought it best, while it was so early and they were so young.

 _I will give you a crown of winter roses,_  he’d said against her neck. He’d sounded so happy that she’d laughed, even if inside she went cold. _You already gave me a crown, my lord, and more than that._ He was adamant, of course, so she had to change tactics.  _I would hate to be fretful, fearing for your health, when I am at such a delicate state, my lord._

There’d been some bluster about how he was still strong, that he had no fear of such green boys when he’d survived the Trident and the Battle of the Bells. She’d always been honest to him –  _you are not the same man as you were then, my lord._ He wasn’t: the solid wall of muscle he’d been as a youth, back in the day they first met, had matured and with age had come flabbiness (though he was by no means fat, certainly no Lord Manderly), from years living in peace rather than at war, tourneys and other such martial exercises. He still exercised, still fought, but he also ruled a kingdom and overindulged in food and wine and she wouldn’t trust him to not hurt himself in a folly against men half his age.

In the end he relented, and she breathed.

She hated to use emotional blackmail (precisely because she loved it, the heady power it gave her), but this she was not willing to give up. She’d given up plenty throughout their married life, but this –

What she did not say is that she would have personally ripped the nails from his fingers and toes with pliers if he dared humiliate her like that. She knew that he thought that it would be gallant; would think it was going full circle, another way to show his triumph and stomp on Rhaegar’s memory, especially when she was with child.

(She knew that, in some fundamental level, he knew she had not been abducted and raped and some part of him feared that. Feared knowing he risked everything for a woman who did not, could not, and would not love him as much as he loved her.)

It  _was_  a beautiful day for a tourney, though, she’d grant him that, even if she’d been against another tourney at all, and some part of her that was still childish and a girl with a head full of songs and stories enjoyed it just the same.

Maybe they were not so different, then.

So she found herself sitting straight-backed and alert by his side, serious as she was taught to be in the early days of their reign. It was an odd mask, that of gentle kindness mated to wintry calm; she had learned it well, after so long, how to navigate court while retaining the nature of a true child of the north. She wore it then, watching knights and young lords in their finery, so very proud of themselves (or so she thought). Even  _him,_ but then, he was always proud of himself _._

He’d appeared brighter than ever in his gold and ruby armor (and Lyanna did so hate rubies, because they reminded her of him and how his were still scattered on the Trident, same as his blood) and yes, she _loathed_ him for how beautiful he looked and how well aware of it he was and because  _he_  could go and do that when she had to sit there and watch.

She still owed him a joust, but she doubted there would be time, now she was with child.

She did laugh when he was sent from his horse by the Lannister dog of all people – the giant of a man they named the Hound. She laughed harder at Jaime’s betrayed look at being downed by his family’s own loyal servant, as if the man had done it on purpose to insult him.

She wasn’t laughing when she the Tyrell boy took the field to hand a red rose to her niece. A harmless gesture, no doubt, and she’d heard rumors about him and Robert’s brother, but still…

Mayhap she saw too much of herself in them. They said Arya was much like her; she doubted Arya would ever be half as much a fool as she was and for the girl’s sake she hoped she was right. The girl is clever and strong and had some of her father’s harsh practicality in her; _don’t try to change her,_ she told Ned when he spoke of dancing lessons that weren’t about dancing at all.

(It made a strange sort of sense, she thought, that Arya, the better and improved Lyanna, so to speak, would love Jon, the better and improved Rhaegar, so to speak – and that this time he would love her back, though their love was not of the same nature as their predecessors’.)

Sansa, however, the happy flush on her cheeks at the Tyrell boy’s flattery, was enough to set Lyanna on an edge. She was so much like her lady mother, but also so very much a Stark; mayhap Lyanna was seeing things, but she’d seen the way she was charmed by Oberyn Martell’s golden son (who, it seemed, inherited his father’s skill with women, exceptionally well matched to his mother’s golden looks), she’d heard talk of a betrothal between them. North and south together at last, she’d heard, ice and fire.

 _Ice and fire_ , indeed. She thought of her son at the Wall, cold and alone, and momentarily forgot the events before her.

Mayhap she was just remembering another girl with a song in her heart and stars in her eyes at the glamour of court; but she breathed easier when the Hound sent the young Tyrell sprawling, just to tense up anew when she saw the look in _his_ eyes.

Well damn.

“On behalf of Prince Joffrey,” he said. Lyanna breathed, even if she did not entirely believe him.

That night, however, at the feast, she watched Sansa – watched how happy she looked as she basked under Joffrey’s thick-layered attention, much to Cersei’s apparent disapproval and Jaime’s amusement at her disapproval; how little Arya yawned with boredom, making Lyanna smile against her will.

Robert was indulging again. She let him; it was good that he was happy, as at least one of them should be. He had every reason, after all: the woman he loved was pregnant with his child and his kingdom had an heir on the way. All was well. So he talked loud and drank too much and bragged about his conquests, some proper, some not, and reminisced with Ned, and she could see a small smile on her brother’s face as they did, and watched how Margaery Tyrell, recently arrived at court as well, eyed her husband as she conversed with her own brother and Renly. Plotting something, no doubt, as young people always did.

Still, all was well.

She should know better than to think things would be well for very long.

“You’re matching the girl with the young snake, Ned?” her husband chortled, though she did not know what was so amusing about that. It made sense, though it would make _more_ sense to marry her off to Trystane or Quentyn than to the heir of a second son, considering the status of the Starks – but the girl liked Joffrey well enough, so why not?

“Maybe,” she heard her brother say, sensed the doubt in his voice. The Starks and Martells were very distant; there was no love lost between them, what with Lyanna ( _again_ ) giving cause to enmity between them, but alliances were alliances.

The world was changing. She thought once again of Daenerys and Viserys, across the Narrow Sea. Alone, and so lost, no doubt, while they made merry in what was theirs. Wondered whether she should have done the same – perhaps joined them.

Maybe, she echoed her brother, inside her head. Maybe.

Her hand went to her belly; Robert’s large one covered hers.

Maybe, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I seem to have backed myself into a corner. I know where I want the story to go, but I don't really have a clue how to get there without sounding retarded, but I'll get there, eventually. I even daydreamed a little epilogue for the very far future, but... updates will slow as I untangle the strands in my head. Stay tuned!
> 
> (And yes, Joffrey exists, but he's not the same ol' Joffrey we all love to hate. And yes, SanSan is my OTS, shush you.)


	11. The horselord and the girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things change, only a little.

The day they found out about young Daenerys Targaryen’s pregnancy, she felt the child move inside her for the first time.

They were water dancing – because what Robert didn’t know didn’t hurt him – with Syrio Forel when Ser Arys Oakheart came for her. She could see her little niece’s eyes orient on him and measure him up; she was a smart girl, was Arya Stark, and Lyanna was proud of her, because suspicion and cynicism would keep Arya safe. She would not be Lyanna Stark come again, after all.

It was their little secret, this dancing together. Being with Sansa was easy: she was always with the ladies at court, being such a lady already. Even though Lyanna was no more given to girlish talks now than she was when _she_ was two and ten, she appreciated her niece’s happiness and presence just the same. At least, it gave her opportunity to watch the girl, listen to her bright chatter and, she hoped, hear her confidences, if she had any. It was rather easy to love Sansa Stark.

It would not be fair to not give Arya the same prerogative, however. She was more than ready to admit it was a lot more fun to have dancing lessons with Syrio and Arya than embroider and prattle with the women at court, too. _Swift as a deer_ , indeed.

“Your Grace, the Hand wants to speak with you,” said Ser Arys, his face a veritable mask, for whatever it was worth. If he was surprised to find his queen in breeches, hair tied up and out of the way and a slim practice sword in her hand, he hid it well. The Kingsguard was used to her eccentricities by now; they had no choice.

It was then, as she freed her hair from the leather holding it back and shook it back, drenched in sweat (who knew that being a water dancer was so demanding?), that she felt it, a flutter, right there. Her hand went automatically to it, palming her stomach where she’d felt it, what she was _sure_ was –

Movement.

Too deep, too different, too _intimate_ to be anything but movement.

Not a delusion, then. Not some sort of unspecified condition that delayed her moonblood. She had not felt any of the symptoms, no morning sickness, nothing like the dread that was her first pregnancy. Robert said it was because she was strong, as was their child, but she’d somehow hoped and she did not even know she hoped for that until she knew without a doubt it _wasn’t_ , even though she'd told them herself that she  _was..._

“Your Grace?”

Ser Arys looked worried and puzzled and Arya was watching her in silence, leaning against her side as if she expected Lyanna to collapse at any time, shifting from foot to foot like a nervous horse. Syrio watched, the man’s warm eyes seeing far more than they were supposed to, and she strangled the urge to cry before it could well up in her eyes, swallowed against it.

“It’s nothing,” she said and drew her dignity around her like a cloak. “Just a dizzy spell. From the babe, you see,” and that was enough for Ser Arys; he nodded, making sympathetic noises she did not care to hear. It was not enough for Arya, whose eyes narrowed (a suspicious little girl, always), or for Syrio, whose eyes were sympathetic, as well, but for another reason.

So she returned her practice sword to its stand and followed Ser Arys, to see what her brother wanted.

 _The Hand_ was a strange title to associate with him still. It brought memories of Jon Arryn’s benevolent smile, whenever she thought of the Hand. He was always kind to her, even when she wasn’t, especially on the first years of her marriage when everything about Robert and being queen was a source of frustration.

Her brother, though… she expected it to be official business, then – but what would he want with her?

She’d grown acquainted with the Red Keep; she’d learned its halls, its shadows and lights, crannies and crooks, quite well, and perhaps that’s why finding him in the Hand’s Tower, in the Hand’s solar, was so jarring. Yet there he was, her quiet brother. The quiet wolf, people used to call him, back when they were young. It was a rather apt title for him.

She took the moment to watch him – how he’d grown, how he’d changed. There had been precious few opportunities to see him these past fifteen years, ever since she wed Robert (and it had been quick, too, almost as soon as she’d recovered from the fever she was standing before the Seven in a gray and white gown and the Baratheon black and yellow around her shoulders). They had their obligations in these southern lands and Ned had the North and a newborn family to care for, no thanks to her, and the last time she’d seen him, before their trip to Winterfell, was during the Greyjoy uprising – and then, it was not long and there was war around them once again.

He had grown, of course he had. He was now a father five times over, as strong and honorable as their father once was. Less strict, yes, kinder, perhaps, but – it was there, the Northman she knew he was always meant to be. Tall, standing straight and proud in the soft light that permeated the solar and made everything golden. Her beloved, handsome brother who loved her – she knew that – one of the few people still living who knew the whole of her story.

“He intends to kill her,” her brother said and she blinked, wondered whether she’d missed something while lost in thought.

“What?”

“What happened to the honorable man I knew as a child, in the Vale?”

 _Did he ever exist, Ned, outside of your fevered imagination? What is honor, anyway?_ She wanted to say and didn’t. It would be cruel and Lyanna, in spite of her many flaws, was not needlessly cruel.

He gestured for her to sit, so she did, and he fell on a chair across from her, and it was only then that she noticed how tired he was, how worn. He had not been happy to come south; she thought it was just memory and the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Now she wondered whether there was something else bothering him, something she – inured to the southern people – did not notice.

“We heard today that Daenerys Targaryen is with child,” he said and she listened and imagined a girl no older than her son heavy with child in a foreign land, a girl with Rhaegar’s eyes and Rhaegar’s silver hair, his _sister_. “Her brother brokered a deal with the Dothraki to get himself an army. His sister for a _khalasar_. To hear Varys say, he plans on conquering the Seven Kingdoms back… hopes to accomplish that with his wife's horselord.. _._ ”

She froze.

She thought.

 _He brokered a deal, his sister for a khalasar,_ her brother said. It wasn’t that what disturbed him, though, though she knew he flinched a little at the idea of a Targaryen with a band of horselords. _He brokered a deal,_ he said, as it was nothing and why would it? Her father was ready to trade her to Storm’s End; Rhaegar traded her future for his prophecy, just as Elia's own mother traded her for a place by the Iron Throne – what was, then, a noblewoman but a pawn? He was ready, she knew, to find brave strong men for his daughters, was he not? The better claim, too, the best, why not? Were there not talks of a marriage pact with Oberyn Martell's golden son and his elder daughter?

 _His sister for a khalasar,_ he said, and she knew it was the _khalasar_ part that bothered him, made his lip curl in sympathy for the four and ten girl now with child by a man she could scarce know, from a wholly different cultured than what she would be used to. Then again he’d sold himself in Brandon’s place to Catelyn Tully’s bed, just as Rhaegar’s freedom was sold for diplomatic bonds and the squabble of lords. Would he have courted her, had he not been married, were she older? Ah, but would he have even known she existed? Then again, Rhaegar believed in fate, he might’ve believed they would meet regardless.

It was not that Viserys had sold his sister, a girl little more than a child, to a tribe of horselords known for their violence. It was not that what shocked her brother, even her honorable brother who loved his wife and his children. It was the utter _waste_ of it, the waste of a princess born of a century old lineage given in marriage to a barbaric tribe. It was that he planned to come back for what he thought was his and with a _khalasar_ he hoped to accomplish that.

“The _khal_  won’t cross the Narrow Sea,” she said, quiet. He regarded her, heard her, but said nothing.

“Robert ordered her dead,” he said, just as quiet, after an eternity of silence.

_Dead?_

_Dragonspawn,_ he’d uttered when she mentioned Rhaenys and Aegon in passing once. There was no sorrow there, not a trace of guilt. He was a good man to all who knew him, not wise, not a great king, but a good man – a good man who did not care when one of his allies ordered two children butchered, because it was convenient for him and his newfound position.

Who’d have butchered her own child had he known he existed, would have deemed it necessary because he was dragonspawn. She did not know he would but she knew it just the same, that his love of her would not surpass his hatred of her lover. She thought of her son at the Wall, tall and strong and being honed to adulthood by the harshest of their world, the Wall and the beyond, and for one moment she was glad that he was far, that he was _safe_ , as safe as one could be in their world.

A good man who would murder a girl of four and ten because she was pregnant by a horselord, because of her name and her likeness and the implied threat to his kingdom, the one he allegedly won for her, because of what the girl represented and little else. Lyanna knew nothing of Daenerys Targaryen beyond what was known in the Seven Kingdoms, the common wisdom that she was born in Dragonstone and spirited away to the Free Cities as an infant when the rebellion was all but lost for the then-reigning dynasty, but she _knew_ she could not let that girl die, not like that, no more than she would let her own son die.

She understood, then, what Ned wanted, why he’d called her there. He’d tried and failed to dissuade Robert from this murder and now he thought she could, because she was _Lyanna_ , the woman for whom powerful men tore a kingdom apart, like dogs with a bone.

She couldn’t help it, she laughed, and he looked at her like she was mad, which made her laugh harder, because it _was_ mad. She knew it was hysterical, sounded hysterical, and she did not care.

“Oh, Ned, my sweet, sweet Ned, what power do you think I have over him? Oh, my brother, how little you know…!” and there were tears on her eyes, but she swallowed and panted and drew them back before they could grow beyond her control and she found herself into another mood entirely, one of hysterical sorrow rather than hysterical mirth.

That power, she had never had. That power, she would never have.

Would she have become like him, had she grown with her father a little longer, suckled on that honor like on a mother’s milk until her sire passed her to the stag she now bedded, whose child she now bore?

If he knew her thoughts, knew the odd flashes of memory and attraction in her, had he noticed the looks she gave her personal guard, the golden Lion of Lannister? She did not think he had, he would have remarked on her, berated her, perhaps, like a child, as they all thought she was. Had he known the truth of her love for her silver prince, the full depth of it, of their nights together, would he have thought her dishonorable, would he have shunned her further than he already did? Because she knew he did, now. He loved her, he could not help it, she was his blood, but there was an underlining of seriousness, of doubt, of broken trust, and Lyanna both loved and hated him for it.

“I will talk to him,” she said, because it was not his fault; it was the way he thought, honor above all. She thought he would warn an enemy before attacking, because his honor would not accept otherwise.

There was concern in his gray eyes, too, something she did not remember ever seeing, not since Harrenhal, and she felt like breaking something.

Why bother telling him she would, anyway, because Daenerys was a girl and Lyanna was a girl once and she knew in a manner no man would ever know, what it was like, to bear a child, to bed a man? Why bother telling him that she would have done the same for Ashara Dayne, for an innkeeper’s wife, for a Flea Bottom's whore?

And as she had fully expected, later in the night, his hand upon her stomach drawing orisons on her skin, it did not work. She asked for Daenerys's life, his fingers curled into a fist. The flutter started, calmed again inside of her. She felt sickness well up in her throat and swallowed against it, as she had against the tears and the laughter.

“The ravens have flown,” he told her and for the first time there was no softness in his voice, only calm and she, absurdly, rejoiced in it. “It is done.”

“Done? The girl still lives,” she said, stretched beside him in the soft light of the fire. Pregnancy had not made her wanton, the way it happened before, but it made her calmer; she’d been able to enjoy his attentions without the ever-present warring tensions of getting with child.

 _She did nothing,_ she said. _There is no hope in her cause,_ she said. _Dragonspawn,_ he repeated, as if he had to, as if he would be lost if he didn't, blue eyes dark, flashing dangerously, much as the storms that wreathed his familial seat. _She will die, and her brother,_ he said. _She poses no risk to you, she is just a girl, as I was once,_  she said. _Not like you, Lyanna, never like you,_ and she almost believed him. _What of our child, Robert, what of its fate? The gods take not kindly for murder,_ and he had only grimaced, serious, as if she was mad, as if she was a fool.  _The gods care not for those inbred dragons._

She knew he would not be moved. She made sure her voice was calm, as if this was no matter. She felt the rage spread with every callous word, every counterargument that countered nothing, the waking dragon as Rhaegar used to say. He’d been convinced that, wolf or not, she was one of them, one of _his_ , more than she was a Stark. He’d been wrong, but she would not contradict his delusions when they were harmless as that. He could not possibly know that, while the rage of the dragon ran hot (and she had witnessed it more than once, a sight to behold was Rhaegar in a rage; it had excited her, to see him so utterly _alive_ ), the rage of the wolf ran cold as the winter. _Winter is coming_ said their words. A warning and a threat.

“It will be done,” he said, watching her, cool and assessing. She thought she could see the warrior he’d been before, the warrior she’d wedded, the man who drew half a kingdom to ashes for the sake of a woman and a dead northern lord. He was a handsome man, her lord husband, powerful and strong, and he was intelligent, however little he used his intellect compared to raw strength and singleminded stubborness. Brash, yes, and blind to many things, but he was no fool and she knew that her pleading for Daenerys’s life did not please him. He had always been gentle to her, but a woman, any woman, would not cow him, not even the one he proclaimed to love.

Maybe he saw in her, that moment, looking into her eyes, blue to gray, the nature of the lie he had ignored for so long. Maybe he suspected she did it out of love for the dragons – foolish, because she had no cause to love them anymore. Her only cause to love them at all was dead in the Trident, by her lord husband’s own hand.

It did not matter.

The rage grew slow and relentless inside of her, with every denial, every argument. She could almost hear a snap like that of glaciers, what she thought the great ice plates of the north must sound like, but it was only her teeth grinding.

“The dragon whore deserves to die,” he said at last, little more than a hiss through his clenched teeth.

The ice broke; the glacier rumbled into the sea. The wave rose and crashed.

“The great Robert Baratheon, first of his name,” she said at last or thought she said and the scorn was clear in her voice, scorn like she’d never felt or dared think of before. She’d never been wise, but the rage turned her blood to ice, filmed her eyes with gray and red. “Always in fear of a girl’s cunt, first mine and now hers –”

He backhanded her.

Before she knew what happened she’d straddled his chest, knees on the bed to each side of him, and her nails sunk into the hard flesh of his neck – the muscles there, as the rest of him, were strong and thick and she had no hope of ever harming him like this but she felt the flesh bow and give, the skin break as she pressed harder ( _pressure points, there are pressure points here, places where you can break a man_ ) and something like blood flicker under her nails, in the shape of them. That he hadn’t toppled her yet was testament to how fast she’d moved and how she’d surprised him; then again, he’d never known her, not really. The look in his eyes said as much, the rigid tension in his muscles, as if he had never seen this woman before, as if she was a changeling.

He hadn't, and she was.

The skin on her cheek stung where he’d bruised her. It felt unnaturally hot.

“I shall wear this with pride, _my lord_ ,” she said. Her voice felt distant, far from the ringing in her ears, and before he could do anything more – whether curse her or harm her or apologize to her, she did not know which would be worse – she rose from the bed and left before she could hear whatever reply he meant to give.

She did not notice the eyes fixed on her back, nor the half-hearted voice that called for her, faintly, in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took far too long to write and it's still crap.


	12. The morning bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see reactions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to thank you all again for the kind words and support <3

They were looking at her.

Of course they were. She made no effort to hide the aftermath of their argument from last night. She told him she was going to wear it with pride, and she meant it. The bruise  blossomed overnight, purple and ugly just as she expected it to, and in the morning on her own chambers she’d looked at it and – surprising even to herself – smiled.

Robert was a strong man; she was a strong woman. No match for his physical strength, but his superior in mental fortitude, if nothing else, ah, there she was his superior, and she knew that.

There was a dull, persistent pain to her cheek. She did not care.

Instead, she waged inside her head on who would be the first to break the silence and _ask_ her about it.

She laid her bets on Ned: as her brother and Hand of the King he had the highest interest in her health other than her lord husband and Robert of course knew the nature of her injury.

So she went on with her routine, untroubled. She did not bother to explore the odd lightness in her heart, the high spirits left in the wake of her rage, higher than she’d felt in months (higher than she’d felt in _years_ ). She laughed; she played the high harp, a skill learned at Winterfell from a stray bedraggled bard, one of the few to reach the North, and perfected under Rhaegar’s careful tutelage.

( _No, no, like this,_ he would say and his fingers would direct hers, sure and focused, even when she leaned against his chest and stole a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Nothing distracted him from his music, though, not even Lyanna Stark. He smiled, but he instructed her as he did.

She was never as good as him.)

She even hummed over her embroidery, to the confusion of the ladies at court. She felt both Sansa’s and Cersei’s looks as they sat together, as was custom, Cersei lolling and making droll commentaries over the day’s gossip, Sansa embroidering in her neat, sure hand, her work far superior to Lyanna’s. As usual, except not quite.

Cersei’s eyes were thoughtful; Sansa’s were curious and uncertain.

Sansa would be wondering what sort of man would hit a woman; the girl would never consider that the queen, her own aunt and a woman she admired (why, Lyanna could not possibly understand), could do something to offend, could do anything less than honorable, because she was a Stark. She would wonder whether it was not a strike, after all, but an accident; she would mull on those things and never ask because it would not be proper, at least not before the ladies, lest the answer be something less than savory. She was smart, but also young, even naïve.

Sansa Stark believed the abduction and rape story Lyanna spun after her lover fell on the Trident. She saw the king as the hero, however unlikely, even though her nose wrinkled a little at his drunken callousness and easy, loud laughter. Lyanna would do nothing to dissuade her, not now.

The lioness though, being older and far from innocent, must wonder about Robert’s sudden change of behavior, as he had never hit his lady wife before, not even in the height of his drunkenness. She would not think or confuse it for anything less than a strike to the face; she would assess the potential changes in Lyanna, calculating whether the queen made some mistake worthy of being hit, whether she’d missed any fluctuations or inconsistencies in Lyanna’s behavior to the king or in general and whether she could profit from said mistakes, in a way or another, if they existed.

Would also, wonder whether it would’ve happened if _she_ were the one married to the king. Robert’s obsessive love for his queen was well known, and Cersei Lannister would not have had that to her advantage.

Lyanna was proud of her, after a fashion, of her scheming and measuring and thoughtfulness. Let her plot and dream and wonder; it showed strength of character and a sharp mind, however misguided it was. Maybe, in another world, under other circumstances, they would have been friends.

But then, maybe not.

Some other ladies at court, Lady Selyse among them, eyed her as if she was distasteful, as if they knew she must have done wrong, disgraced herself somehow; which was not unusual, as they did not trust the whore they saw her to be, though they were far too courteous (and not mad enough) to spread salacious rumors about her. These women had a woman's instinct and a woman's wariness; they knew more than their men.

She should’ve known better than expect Ned would be the first; it was his spirited daughter, Arya, who did not have the same caution as her sister.

“What happened?” she asked with all the subtlety of the very young. Lyanna smiled; ruffled the girl’s hair, as they went about their dancing lesson, stymying any possible question from their dancing master with a look.

“Was hit during a fight,” she shrugged, ended the conversation by taking to the narrow practice sword before the girl could ask further. She trusted Arya, as much as she trusted anyone, for they were pack; she did not underestimate the girl’s mind, either, as was often done. Nonetheless, she need not know and unwittingly spread the story of Robert turning on her. She was young, a child, and it would not do to have her know things beyond her years, things such as this. Even though she could see the doubt in Arya's eyes; she knew better than to talk.

(Part of her wanted to tell, wanted the story to spread, wanted them to know the man she was forced to marry – but she would not, even now. She was reckless, yes, but not insane.)

There were eyes on her, through the long day ahead, and she gloried in them, even if she not showed it. Let them look; let them know; let them wonder, what sort of woman she was.

When the rumor of her injury spread far enough, Ned went to her, concerned. Concerned he eyed the bruise and concerned he watched her in silence. She could almost _feel_ when his brain went to the right conclusion for his eyes, gray and so much like hers, widened in surprise.

“I talked to him,” she said before he could say anything.

“What happened?” he muttered, calm, but she could tell there was – concern and a brooding hatchling of a storm inside of him, too. He was divided between his king and his sister; she was disgusted, but only a little. She, too, was torn once between conflicting allegiances, after all.

“He did not agree,” once again she hitched a shoulder, relaxed. She felt light, so light, so free, as she hadn’t in months. It was so easy, to say such words, to lay blame at someone else’s feet, for once.

Ned’s lips pursed tight; she knew there would be words, arguments, mayhap even violence. They waged war for her, but she understood: some bonds were stronger than blood. Robert Baratheon was more of a brother to him than she a sister: they grew together, fought together, shared things she would never have shared, even if he was not sent to the Vale to foster with him. They were men, sharing their own world and their own thoughts and their own hard friendship. Still, he would fight for her honor; the thought made her glad.

Her lips stretched into a smile with no sweetness, only teeth. The stretch of her bruise hurt, a little.

Was there any guilt in him? She thought he could see a little, that he thought it was his fault. He wasn’t able to dissuade Robert so he’d appealed to her. Now there she was, bruised but still (oh, and how glad she was, that she was able to do this) dignified, as a queen must be.

As the queen that, for better or worse, she _was._

But she felt the need to twist the knife a little deeper, and wondered whether this was how warriors felt in the battlefield: this exultation, this bloodlust. Perhaps it was; she fought, yes, even thrilled in a joust, once, but there had never been danger, real danger, not like there would be in a war. Nothing like her husband and brother lived through, because of her ( _because of Aerys._ )

“I told you, that he would not change his mind,” she said, quiet, and brushed her hair back. Deliberate, so he would look at the results of their ‘talk’. She was not surprised by the vicious satisfaction that bloomed in her chest when he winced. “So Daenerys is to die, anyway.”

He wanted to say something; she forestalled him.

“No, he never hit me before. I made him angry,” she said, not caring. Not caring, she drew closer to her brother, tilted her head; she did not know where this newborn viciousness came from, but it was there, and some part of her gloried in it. It was odd how her voice came, cool and calm as if from far, far away, from someone else altogether. “I paid, what is it the Ironborn say? I paid the iron price for my daring.”

She wasn’t entirely sure whether she meant the bruise, her entire life, or something else altogether. The flutter in her belly began anew; her hand went to it, on instinct, and she shivered.

It was with the same distance that she saw the emotions play through Ned’s face, Ned’s eyes: hurt, conflict. Something like pain, something like loss, something like guilt, something like pride, at her, and something colder, more thoughtful – they flitted like shadows over a lake.

 _I don’t really know him,_ the thought popped in her head, unbidden. It made her inexplicably sad.

“He is not the man I knew,” he whispered. She thought, _was he ever?_

_Were you ever, then, the man I thought you were?_

“I will resign,” he said and _this_ startled her from her thoughts, enough she could  _feel_ the ringing in her ears, her mouth dropping open. “I will resign, go back north. I can't stand this, Lyanna, not... this hopelessness, these people, this stranger,” and this time she was not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

“You will do no such thing,” she settled for saying, sighed. “Who will take care of this kingdom, if you do? Petyr Baelish? Stannis? Stannis can hardly contain his contempt for Robert, and I am quite sure Lord Martell can't, either. Positively delights in his incompetence, I'm sure. Robert will not listen to me, Ned, and not to Petyr, not to anyone, not how he listens to you. Not even the lords can tame him, Ned. He needs you.” _I need you, too,_ she wished to say but didn't. It was true; for all his faults, he was her brother, he was part of the pack, and she felt this much better with him by her side. With his daughters, too.

He knew that. Knew she was right.

Honor was a fine thing to keep to, especially in the North, but it did not feed the smallfolk, or them.

“Talk to him,” she said at last, and left him to his own dark thoughts.


	13. A nocturnal ride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jaime and Lyanna talk about the past.

The coming night felt cold and gray, lackluster. She would have chided herself for feeling some kinship to it, but didn’t. She was not in the mood to chide herself for anything, not now.

As with every high, so came the crash.

It was getting late, but she felt no need for supper among the lords and ladies that attended court, as was usual. She’d endured their stares with pride and honor, she thought, even with a mad sort of delight – but now as night fell and the Keep grew quiet she found she did not want their eyes on her anymore. She’d gloried in her wound throughout the day, as much as, she thought, a warrior would; come nightfall, however, she only wanted to forget.

Rather than facing the crowd and her lord husband she went to where she usually did when she would not be disturbed: to the stables and to her horse, a lovely Dornish mare, strong and lithe and quite fast, ideal for her, a rich bay that welcomed her with a soft whinny of recognition. She’d been a gift from Dorne for her twentieth nameday; they knew of her love for riding and they did breed excellent horses.

It had been weeks since she last went riding. After she announced the pregnancy to the small council, they forbade her from riding. Usually she would not have minded them either way, but she’d been distracted by her family and the court and somehow obeyed their decree.

Well, no longer. She knew well where her true friendships lay – and beyond her family, she only trusted her mare. Odd, that, but it was true.

“Hey, girl,” she said, burying her face against the mare’s black mane and embracing her neck. “I missed you, girl, did you miss me?”

The mare made a low sound she could not name that she took as _yes_. Lyanna smiled. She’d never named her mare, for some reason; she only called her girl, which was enough. More than enough, when the mare brushed at her shoulder and nipped at the back of her gown in gentle affection, the way horses are wont to do.

“Shall we ignore the rules and go off for a ride, then?” she mused aloud, carding her fingers through the mare’s mane and tugging at the whorls and gnarls there. It seemed like a good idea, and she took the mare’s flick of her tail as agreement; they had perfected this, the silent language between horse and rider. It was quick work to saddle and prepare her for the ride.

She should expect more from her luck than to let her go out and ride in peace.

“Riding alone, Your Grace, at such hour?” said the last person she wanted to meet right then, leaning against the stable’s door and, of course, right in her path.

She debated whether running him down would be worth the hassle after. It _would_ be immensely satisfying…

Probably not worth it, though.

Not that she did not want to. She could _feel_ the moment he saw the bruise on her face, the weight of his stare on her skin almost physical. She groaned inwardly; she’d thought herself free of this nonsense for now, but clearly it was not be.

Her girl felt the subtle shift in the rider’s mood, dancing on her feet uncertainly until Lyanna put a hand to her neck to calm her.

“Why not?” she replied irritably. “I am in hardly any danger here, _Ser_ Jaime.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” he said, affecting levity, but the easy insolence he often had towards her was gone. Instead there was something else altogether in his handsome face: the same cool, assessing look she’d seen on his twin earlier that day. Sometimes it was uncanny how alike they were, Cersei and Jaime: the same shade to their green eyes, the same shade of gold for their hair, the same look of haughty arrogance and self-assuredness, the same cheekbones and pale skin and highborn grace, each in their gender, it was true, but somehow alike.

Cersei made for a voluptuous seductress, the type that loves and destroys in equal measures, whose love comes with its share of poison (it was fortunate, she thought, that Tywin had the foresight - or the lack of choice - to marry her to Oberyn Martell: the man was not so easily poisoned and more than her match).

Jaime, she thought, could be her perfect male counterpart on that aspect as well, if he so willed. Lyanna was entirely too glad he did not seem to will it at all.

He watched her and she resisted the urge to fidget. Like his sister, he said nothing, did not question, for which she was duly thankful; unlike his sister, he went past her and further into the stables, flashing her a look that bade her to  _wait_  and, damn her, she waited.

Soon enough he was back astride his white stallion, because _of course_ he would ride a white stallion.

The godswood was silent at that hour, as it was silent most of the time, there were few in these southern lands that kept the old gods. Night stained everything dark, though, in a myriad of shades of gray and blue and green and it was oddly soothing to her, how quiet it was, the rustle of the alders and elms, the sound of their horses' hooves muted by the fallen leaves. Winter was coming, her House words said, but it was hard to imagine winter ever coming to these lands. She was a northern woman, would always be, but she’d learned to appreciate the south after living so long in it, and some of its people as well. Sometimes.

Jaime Lannister was as far from a storybook knight as one could get (well, excepting Ser Gregor, but the man was a monster through and through; what possessed Rhaegar to knight him she would never know). He’d stabbed his king in the back, making him an oathbreaker. He was sarcastic and arrogant and had little to no respect for his king and queen, the ones he was meant to guard, or for anyone at all that was not his sister, his lord father or, to a lesser degree, his younger brother. He was reckless, proud and she highly doubted he kept to the code he’d sworn to when he took the white.

Yet somehow he still managed to look the part riding beside her, all poise and a warrior’s elegance – he did not sit a saddle as well as she (there were few who did, even knights, even lords), but he made for a beautiful figure, the moonlight catching his hair and his armor – light and practical, not the elaborate affair worn for tourneys but the sort omnipresent in the Kingsguard at all hours. He seemed thoughtful, focused on the pommel of his saddle, the courser keeping easy pace with her mare.

Pensive like that, he was more like Rhaegar than ever, the gold of his hair turned silver in the night, his green eyes shadowed, made darker by the lack of light, though she would have never confused the two, even in pitch black, not really. It made her body react to him in unwanted ways and yet…

She almost did not notice when silence transitioned into words.

“Queen Rhaella was beautiful, you know,” he said and she blinked, both due to the unexpected words and the uncharacteristic quiet of his voice. “She was… not beautiful like Cersei, I don’t think anyone _could_ be, but there was a sort of – there was something about her. I don’t know. She was so sad, like her son, and so fragile. Pure, for a Targaryen. The sort of woman that inspires men to want to protect her, shelter her, love her, even, for her fragility. Much like her brother, I think, though for different reasons.”

_Why is he telling me this? Why now?_

“She was forced to marry,” he told her. “Selmy says she was in love with someone else at the time, some knight of lesser birth, but was forced to do her duty by her father and marry Aerys.”

 _Oh._ She knew that, she’d heard the stories, from court talk and from men’s talk and from Rhaegar himself, sometimes, when he spoke of his family, but to hear him say it, tell her that _now_ of all times…

She understood.

_I am not like Rhaella!_

(Aren’t you, Lyanna? Are you sure about that?)

He was looking at her now. That odd look of his, one she couldn’t quite place because she saw it so rarely. It wasn’t pity; she would have done something far more drastic than stare back at him if it were. It was something else altogether that she wasn’t entirely sure she liked.

“I had to stand outside their room and listen to what he did to her,” he said and she shuddered at the change in his voice – it felt cold, far colder than usual, and distant, so very distant, so unlike him, it was unnerving. “The night after he killed your father and brother, he was so excited, she cried all night. I wanted to help her then, I truly did. Ser Darry told me it was not my duty to protect the queen from the king. My duty was to stand by and listen as he raped his wife, just as I stood by and watched him slay your family.”

As he fell silent, she realized they’d stopped moving at some point, the horses standing so close their thighs almost brushed. Not that she cared or even noticed, not with the echo of his voice still ringing in her ears. There was something she was meant to get here, some implicit warning, or so she thought; it was hard to tell what he _meant_.

He had watched as Aerys butchered her brother and father, tortured them to death. The rage she felt for their murder was muted, worn out. She'd raged enough when the news came to her, all those years ago.

He had slayed Aerys, though. _Kingslayer,_ Robert called him.

They were somewhere deep into the godswood, the tree boughs casting shadows over them, broken here and there by mottled moonlight. She couldn’t quite see his eyes, or what expression he wore, as he was cast in shadow, and for some reason that bothered her.

( _Let me go, let me go, I must go, they need me, my brothers, my family, they need me, oh, father, gods -  
_

 _Lyanna, listen to sense, I'm sorry, my love, I'm so sorry -_ )

He reached over and brushed his knuckles over the bruise. She startled and shied away on instinct before she even registered what she was doing, what _he_ was doing. He nodded as if he’d expected that and drew back, sitting straight on his saddle, calm as ever.

Her mare shifted, paced a little; she held onto the reins tighter.

“I killed Aerys,” he said at last, and it made her shiver, not in fear, not really. “I am not sorry. I would do it again, if I had to.”

She accepted that; she wouldn’t be sorry, either.

“We should go back,” she said when the silence grew tight once again. He nodded.

They went back to the stables in silence, side by side as before, and she couldn’t keep herself from stealing glances as the strange, strange man that was Jaime Lannister.

(It was only later as she lay on her bed, in her scarcely used personal chambers, thinking over the day past and what she would do next, that she understood what he meant when he said _I would do it again._

It was a long time before she managed to sleep.)


	14. The coming dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things happen.

The night Daenerys Targaryen ate the horse’s heart before the  _dosh khaleen_ in hope of a strong, healthy babe, Lyanna fell ill.

She was having supper beside her lord husband, as per usual. He had his hand on her stomach in a vain hope to feel the fluttering inside her womb. It  _had_  fluttered, but it was so faint he could scarce hope to feel it.  _It’s too small still,_  she explained,  _your little lamb is still a little worm._

Her rage was slow to die. Much as winter, much as the glaciers, it took greater work for ice to vanish than fire – and she was all ice, now, within and without. It had been days; they slept in separate chambers, the necessity for being together gone and – if she was honest – her willingness to put up with her wifely duties dead with it.

Ever since that night, they danced around each other in a dance far unlike the ones she was used to. All was not well; she doubted all would _be_ well, ever again, at least, not the same as before.

It happened that she was not willing to be tolerant, not anymore.

Robert sensed it. She could tell it from his looks, the way he tried to seduce her back – not in a sexual manner, he was not that foolhardy, but in his own blustering way. He was an honest man, was Robert Baratheon, and he knew better than to pretend she was going back to the fold (to _him_ ) that easily. He had apologized for hitting her; he had not apologized or retracted his orders to have Daenerys Targaryen dead.

Yet rage was tiring, as was hatred, and even now she could not quite hate him, not really. Close, but not quite. Not the burning, all-encompassing, unreasonable hatred he felt for the Targaryens, anyway (and how things change, when only a couple generations before they were the best of friends; such was life). So they fell into a routine: she would go through the motions of being queen, as she always did. She would sit by his side and endure his tentative caresses (always restricted to her womb; he was a new father, after all, and she could give him this, if nothing else. It made her feel like a broodmare, to be used only for the heirs she could bring, but, such was the woman's lot, and the rage shifted inside her a little more). She would retreat to her chambers, alone, and alone she would lie down and, sometimes, dream of what-ifs, as she felt the little worm shift inside of her.

(Sometimes the violet eyes in her memory would change to wildfire green and she would wake panting and burning with desire and shame and she would not sleep again, lest she dream.)

She was not happy, had never been since Rhaegar claimed her beneath the heart tree. But she was not _un_ happy, either, sipping cool water beside him, japing with him half-heartedly, the memory of Dany and her unborn foal asleep for a moment as they sat and ate and she pretended all was well.

(Even as, somewhere else entirely, the dragonet chewed and chewed, blood running down her arms, red and rich, staining her pale skin.)

She thought, at the feel of his large hand upon her stomach (it made her suck her breath in tightly, on instinct, her entire body tense as a bowstring), whether she would find it in her to love this child as she would’ve loved Jon, if she were allowed to love him. Whether maybe it would not be such a curse to bear his heir,  _their_ heir, as she’d thought it to be in the first days. It was not the child’s fault; it was not anyone’s fault.

She thought these things and mused on them and chewed on them as she chewed on the pheasant meat and as Dany chewed on the horse’s heart in a land far, far away from her kingdom, another pregnant woman, in another land, married to a man she had to learn to love. Blood clotted on Dany's mouth and arms as thoughts clotted on Lyanna’s head. They were simple thoughts of coming motherhood, the situation of the stores, the repairs that must be done to certain areas of the Keep, water dancing, _fierce as a wolverine_.

Somewhere down the table she felt Jaime’s eyes dart to her, dart away, as always, orienting on his twin. She watched them as they ate: as usual they sat close together, Cersei ensconced between her husband and her brother.

Oberyn Martell looked distant, slouching on his seat in that easy manner he had, the manner that, unsurprisingly, brought many stares from the serving wenches. Unusual for him, however, he was staring straight at her, unblinking, and Lyanna had to bite her lip to keep from shivering. Cersei and Jaime, on the other hand, huddled together like children (as, she reasoned, they probably did when they _were_ children), so close together she suspected they were holding hands beneath the table. They talked, sometimes laughed, only to go back into what felt like an excited discussion again; probably plotting something, she reasoned.

It made for such a beautiful sight, golden heads turning together, so sure in each other’s love, it almost hurt to watch.

Further down she saw the Martell golden children mingle with her nieces. Apparently Sansa and Myrcella had become fast friends, even if, from time to time, the redhead sent lovelorn glances at her friend’s older brother, the one talking louder and drinking more than was proper for a boy and being a general nuisance to the younger squires and lordlings. Ned told her the girl put up a fight when he spoke of taking his household back north, claiming to not want to be separated from her beloved. Kissed by fire, indeed.

Arya, on the other hand, had taken to Shireen Baratheon so well it surprised her. It didn’t feel like Arya at all to like the shy, grayscale-marked girl so much. At first Lyanna’d been concerned her niece would be rude to Shireen, but now she could not even remember why: Arya was not vicious. She was curious and brash and active, same as Lyanna once was, but she would never be cruel – at least, Lyanna hoped not. On the other side, hesitant and fat and soft, so unlike his parents, Tommen ate in silence and eyed the other children curiously from time to time, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of the strange girl-children he was surrounded by.

It was peace, a fragile peace, but peace nonetheless. There were rifts and cracks that ran far too deep to be easily mended, she knew that and yet – for now, it was peaceful enough.

She chewed, spoke when she was spoken to, watched them; and then there was a stabbing pain in her head, followed by another in her stomach, as if someone sent a knife through her, cleaved her in two, and heat and the scent of blood in the air, thick and rich and coppery, so much blood, she was drowning -

She had no time to cry out. She heard a gasp that might as well have come from the seven hells, it was so far, and the memory of strong hands supporting her, but the world spun before her eyes and then –

Darkness.


	15. Delirium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which many things happen, but only a few are real.

There was a field of winter roses, how odd, she had never seen them in the wild, only in the glass gardens at Winterfell. They were her favorite flowers, even now, with all the mess they made, delicate and hardy the way only a northern flower could be, thorny, of course, as any rose, but also lovely, such a deep blue. The petals felt warm on her fingers, how odd, they should feel cool; they were from the north, weren’t they?

There was a boy among the flowers, young, about two and ten. He was smiling, and there was a sword in his hand, but it fell limp, listless on his fingers. For a moment she thought, almost cried, Bran? They’d left him in a coma in Winterfell, delirious, almost dead. He had recovered, she knew that, Catelyn had warned them by raven, she’d felt such a relief, but he would never walk again, so the maesters said.

It was not Bran, though. When she drew closer she saw him.

“Rhaegar?” she called; “No,” the boy said.

“That’s Viserys,” a voice behind her said. She smiled and leaned against his chest as his arms drew around her waist; she relaxed the way only he managed to relax her, even now. “He is mad, though, just as his father. Just like his brother and will end just as badly, too.”

The boy did not seem mad, though, playing with the sword’s handle until he scratched his finger on the wood and a splinter got in and he cried and she was compelled to disentangle herself from his arms to drop before him and wipe the tears from his eyes, he was so much like she imagined a young Rhaegar to be. His eyes were purple too, and when she looked at his tear-stricken face she thought of the children they never had, Rhaegar and her.

“I only wanted to go home,” the boy said plaintively. “I know, child,” she said, and carded her fingers through his hair, so soft, like a duckling’s down.

“It wasn’t her fault, not really,” said another voice, this time to her left, but she couldn’t see through the sudden golden light. “What a tragedy...”

Then everything went black.

When she woke again she was in a field the likes of which she’d never seen before, thick with grass so tall it felt oddly intimate to stand inside of it. Men with bronzed skin rode slender horses that had seen better days, strong and fierce as their riders. She looked and felt a similar body under her, between her legs, the familiar sense of horse and strength, a silver mare, and she thought of her girl, her bay sand mare. They rode on, she and her khalasar, but the hair flying across her face was not dark, it was silver like her mare and the man beside her was strong and fierce and not anyone she’d ever known.

He did not smile when she did but his hand brushed her thigh as his red stallion drew near her; she shut her eyes, basking in something that felt startlingly like love.

They opened to the circular room she knew so well. Jon was nestled against her belly, not the young man she’d met at Winterfell but the babe she’d nursed only a few times before the fever came and he was handed to the wet nurse. She was humming tunelessly to him, her fingers tracing the downy silver of his hair (it fell, later, and came back dark, fortunately before Ned reached Winterfell, but his eyes were always gray, like a Stark’s). It was a stupid song, something about knights and maidens fair, the sort of song that she knew Sansa liked, except Sansa wouldn’t be born for a few years still.

She did not remember falling asleep, but when her eyes opened again it was to a dark room, her chambers in the Keep, the ones she slept on whenever she was not with Robert. She felt hot, unreasonably so. There was heat against her stomach and against her back; her fingers sank into thick fur, the color she could not tell in the dark.

It felt comfortable, she thought, to lie there in all the warmth. The fur felt soft against her skin, was she naked? The direwolf behind her shifted, the large head resting on her hip, the breath tickled her skin, she smiled. It was still a pup but already too large, already the size of a normal wolf. The one before her was watching, she noticed, a pair of sweet eyes that met hers without fear, golden eyes, she realized. So she curled tighter into herself, feeling sleepy, the wolves shifting with her, Nymeria at her back and Lady against her front, and never once questioned why her nieces’ wolves were there.

This time she woke to what felt like a river, though she could not see, it was dark, and there were ruins somewhere at her back that she knew were Summerhall, though Summerhall was not supposed to be there at all. Somehow this did not disturb her at all because there was something else that caught her attention, something red.

_Rubies._

She held them in her palm, the rubies, and they felt hot, not like a stone should feel hot, even a jewel, but like blood; she felt an odd urge to kiss them, worse, to eat them, swallow them one by one, even though that would kill her, she thought. It would be fitting, though, wouldn’t it?

“Not yet,” said a voice from behind her, a voice she knew, arrogant and mocking, how could she not? She’d heard that damnable voice for years now, she would know his voice anywhere, but what right did he have to tell her what to do?

Yet when she turned it was not him that she saw.

“Not yet,” and this voice, ah, this voice she hadn’t heard in years, more than a decade. She was on her knees, she realized, and naked, with mud on her skin, on her hair, the rubies still tight and cutting into her palm; he fell to his knees before her, forcing her fingers open, so the rubies scattered on the Trident once again. Ruby Ford, they named it, and Ruby Ford it would remain. There was a man behind him, young, red-haired like Robb and Bran and Rickon, but she knew it was not any of them; she darted a glance and caught the pain in his eyes, Jon Connington, how strange, was he not exiled? His fingers brushed her eyes and she felt the tears wet his skin. “We made it, my love.”

“Rhaegar,” she said, and kissed his palm. “Love you, Rhaegar. Always did, fool that I was. Am. Even with his babe inside of me...”

“Hush, love. Hush. Don't worry about the babe, about me.”

Then there was fire, surrounding them, licking at her legs, her naked skin, his skin, and he must be boiling alive in the black armor (without rubies, she noticed) he wore yet she wasn’t afraid, not really, and the fire didn’t hurt. Weird, though, to see the flesh melt from her bones, which, she realized, were black, how odd, she’d thought they would be white.

There was a pair of blue eyes watching her and she turned to find herself in the dark room – no fire, only the hearth and the direwolf heat against her naked skin. There was a deep vibration against her, too, something that made the little hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stand to attention.

They were growling, too low to register as sound, but growling, it was so soothing. The man at the foot of her bed seemed wary to come closer, which was only sensible, and her hands moved the wolves, one to each, and she said “hush.”

“He is no friend,” he said against her ear and she smiled. “No, he isn’t,” she agreed, as his arms went around her waist again. “Don’t blame him, though. Men have fragile prides,” she shrugged; he laughed, rich and sweet and it hurt to not have him with her again, he’d always – somehow – been able to calm her when she was upset. “That we do, my dear, that we do.” There was a horn, she noticed, like a hunting horn, and voices; she watched as the men rode by, chasing a hart or a wild boar she could not tell. Robert was glorious in his hunting garb, but he swayed unsteadily on the saddle and there was such unmistakable sorrow in him that she felt her heart break cleanly in two. She turned on his arms, to look at his face again; her knuckles brushed the bruises on his neck, dark and painful, and she felt an echo of it on her cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said, and the world canted sideways just as he said, “don’t be.”

The pain lingered when she blinked, peering through the wolf's fur – somehow, she’d ended with her cheek on the direwolf’s back, the soothing sound and movement of her breathing more relaxing than any potion, almost as much as his arms around her once were. The eyes that met hers this time were green, but the light of the hearth made them look red. She smiled, sleepy. He looked so young there in the firelight, watching her over the edge of the bed like a child, how improper, chin over an arm, that she thought, Joffrey? But Joffrey would never smile like that, nor would Tommen, come to think of it.  _They look so much alike,_ she realized, the children, they were like him, each of them, only younger, Tommen fatter, Joffrey meaner.

The direwolves were not growling now, how odd, that.

Then darkness like a velvet curtain.

Then a voice smooth and thick and rich and dark that woke her again. This time there were no wolves, no nakedness, though her shift felt wet against her skin.

“You are a strong one, Lyanna Stark,” said Oberyn Martell.


	16. Sandstorms in the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everything changes, again, and Oberyn demands fire and blood.

“Tell me,” he said, “did you love him?”

_Pardon?_

When she tried to speak, though, no voice came out, only a hacking cough. Her throat felt sore, as if it had been burned and scourged, her tongue like sandpaper. He noticed, but made no move to help her, which she expected. She wasn’t sure she would accept if he tried.

No, instead he watched her and she, him. His back to the fire, he was little more than a shadow, but she would have known that voice anywhere, how could she not, after so long? There were few people at court who spoke with that particular lilt. More than that, the voice fit the man: dark, sensual and all too deadly. _The Red Viper of Dorne,_ she remembered suddenly.  _How apt._

She swallowed, once, three times. Her throat felt like someone had split it open and sewn it up again. So did most of her body, come to think of it.

“Yes,” she managed to say, unthinking. _Yes._

She was not entirely who he meant – _did_ implied past. Implied death. Implied.

_Yes._

The right answer then. _Yes._

Light caught on something; she saw the flash of steel, unmistakable even in the dark. He had a dagger, then. The thought should disturb her, that she was alone in a dark room with this man who she _knew_ hated her, with good reason, or as good a reason as anyone could hate her, but it didn’t. She was tired, far too tired, curling under her blankets, her shift making wet noises as she did, unselfconscious. She could not bring herself to care. She could hardly speak, let alone scream; if he wanted to kill her, this was the moment.

And she’d let him.

 _So this it ends,_ she thought. _Not in childbirth, not in suicide or old age, but at the hands of a man._

She rolled onto her back, baring herself to him, an invitation if nothing else, though her head remained turned to him. With luck, it would be quick; but she’d heard of Ser Amory Lorch’s fate. It was said the man took over a month to die. That he died screaming. She did not doubt it at all.

“Good,” he said, calm. She waited. “I suspected as much.”

Her eyes closed on instinct; she thought of Rhaegar and of rubies scattered on the Trident and waited for the touch of steel on her skin.

“You screamed for him often enough. Still, I had to know.”

_What?_

She could hear him pace – slow, measured steps, as if he was thinking. It did not last long; he tugged the chair closer to her bed, sat across from her again, dark and deadly as he was, as his voice, and for some reason she thought of his House’s words: _unbowed, unbent, unbroken._

“You have been ill for over a month,” he said and she started, _a month?_ Was that why she felt so horribly weak? How then was she even alive?

Her hand went to her stomach on instinct, but it was still flat, shouldn’t it be larger now? Gods, she was so tired, why was _he_ here rather than Robert or Ned or –

“The first night, you lost the babe,” he said and somehow it did not surprise her, did not shock her. She thought back, remembered blood, remembered watching Jaime and Cersei talking and holding hands under the table and Robert’s hand warm over her belly and darkness.

She was quite sure she should be feeling something, sorrow, despair, _anything_ , but she didn’t; she felt only the bone-deep exhaustion and the memory of pain.

“Then came the fever and the blood,” he told her, and she listened, entranced. “Sometimes you screamed, sometimes you cried. Most of the time you just slept, a sleep no one could rouse you from. Then you’d wake again, screaming, calling names. Robert was quite distraught. Especially when he heard whose name you were calling.”

 _They name him the Red Viper of Dorne,_ she heard Robert tell him, a thousand years ago it felt. _They said he killed Lord Yronwood. That he fights with poisoned blades… ser Amory Lorch took over a month to die, died screaming…_

“You poisoned me,” she bit out, choked on her own spit, tried again, wanted to laugh because here she was, having what was for all purposes a polite conversation with her murderer and _why didn’t he just go ahead and kill her already?_ “Made me lose the babe, tried to kill me…”

_Just finish this already!_

Oh, but she was tired!

“I am no child-killer,” he said, which of course was not an answer at all, yet the sound of it, like he was amused – not quite offended at her accusation, but there was a hint of that as well. As if the mere idea was absurd and ridiculous.

_He has studied the arts, old arts and dark arts, almost a maester. A lustful, forceful man._

_He tried to kill me._

_But I survived._

_Why?_

“Where is Robert?” she tried again. There was still no fear, no trace of it, only exhaustion so thick she could hardly keep her eyes open. “Why are you here? Where’s my brother?”

“The Usurper is dead and has been for about a fortnight. He left no heirs of his own,” he said and when he shifted she saw the light reflect in his eyes, dark, viper eyes, they said. “Lord Stannis, or should I say His Grace, King Stannis Baratheon, first of his name, is taking over as we speak, as the only legitimate heir to the throne. He was crowned about a week ago. Your brother left with his household about two days ago. Grandmaester Pycelle said you were far too sick to travel; Stannis promised to send you home to Winterfell as soon as you recover, or, should you die, send your body back to be interred in the Winterfell lichyard. Eddard wanted to stay, of course, but in the end decided to leave – Stannis is a honorable man, after all.”

He watched her, legs crossed, one hand on his knee, the other twisting the dagger over and over between his fingers. There was a strange sensation inside of her as she watched him, like her skin had become suddenly too tight, almost to the point of bursting open. Like being born, she thought, but not quite.

_Robert is dead._

It was so strange, that. That it was all for nothing, the rebellion, the rubies, little Aegon’s brains splattered against a wall, Elia Martell screaming as she was raped and killed for no reason but the man she was wed to on her mother’s behest, Rhaenys butchered and for what? They had fifteen years together, their child was dead, and for what? For Stannis Baratheon to inherit something he did not want, never did want...

“Meanwhile, Lord Renly Baratheon of Storm’s End has raised his banners. He intends to challenge his brother for the throne,” he said and she felt a chill run down her spine, something like premonition. “Dorne sides with Stannis, of course. So does the North: your ever-dutiful brother has guaranteed that. He will support the rightful heir. Well, that and the fact you are here, vulnerable and bed-ridden under Stannis's watch. As good a hostage as any,” he shrugged; she thought, _yet again._

“The Westerlands intend to keep neutral, but they will side with Renly once Tywin Lannister realizes Stannis intends to exile his precious golden son to the Wall. The Vale and the Riverlands remain undecided, but Petyr Baelish is riding for the Eyrie as we speak; he intends to marry Lady Lysa Arryn and bring the Vale to Stannis, or so he claims. Stannis has no choice, so he has agreed to the match even though Petyr has no claim to marry a lady such as Lysa Arryn and Lady Lysa would never consent to marry anyone else. The Stormlands and the Reach side with Renly. We are at the brink of another war.”

_This is my fault, again, oh, Robert, what have we done?_

“Yet winter is coming,” he said and this time she could see the shadow of a smile slashing his face, something that made her entire body tense and wake up even with the pain and the tiredness still lingering in her bones, wreathed in fire. “And so is fire, and blood.”

There was a different quality to his voice as he said that, she noticed, like a sort of satisfaction, almost as if he knew something she didn’t, something about _her_ and this time she did shiver, all over.

He sat down again, this time right beside her on the bed. She wanted to say something, anything, demand why _he_ was telling her this, why _now_ when she could scarcely think, but the words failed her. This time she knew he meant no harm to her, no direct harm, anyway. No, he wanted something.

And she knew he was going to get it. Men like Oberyn Martell were rarely denied anything.

“I loved Elia so much,” he said, and his voice was soft, thick with such pain she nearly wanted to cry – whether for him or for Elia or for herself she was not entirely sure. “We told each other everything. She sent me ravens, had them sent even when she was sick after giving birth to Rhaenys, after giving birth to Aegon. When I learned she was dead, I wanted to die.”

 _I’m sorry,_ she thought but did not say.

There was a long silence, as she watched him, as he watched her. Dimly, she noticed light through the windowpanes. The curtains were shut, but there was still a shard of sunlight rising through the gloom, beyond the hearth popping and whispering merrily, drenching them in fire.

She thought of her dream and the black bones of her fingers, of her flesh melting away.

“I was told that Robert Baratheon hit you when you pleaded for Daenerys’s life. Was that true?”

She nodded. _Robert is dead,_ she thought. _I owe him nothing, not anymore._

“Any woman,” she pointed out, as she had then. She would do that for any woman, if she could. She would have done it for Elia and she would have done it for Rhaella, had she known. Her voice felt sore, though, and wan, and she knew, he understood. He had to understand.

He nodded in return and this time when he smiled she saw how come Oberyn Martell had bastards spread all over Dorne and the Free Cities, how he’d brought Cersei Lannister to heel without any real effort. He was _attractive_ , not handsome, not quite, not in the near godlike way men like Jaime and Rhaegar were handsome, but the way predators are. There was something dark and sexual about him, sleek and strong and so inherently _wild_ you wanted to be near it, to challenge it and give in to it. The sort of heady danger that stirred all baser instincts and brought your own darkness to surface.

She had never noticed this in the fifteen years they coexisted around court, playing the game as only a lord and a lady can play. She realized now that it was because he’d never wanted her to. She was wedded to Robert, after all, and he had his own wife and no inclination to cause a second war or provoke the Lannisters any further.

_Why now, then?_

Yet she was not moved or stirred, only tired and worn and aching and oddly empty.

“Elia told me of the prophecy,” he said then, and the charm broke with a near audible _crack_. “The one that consumed Rhaegar. The Prince Who Was Promised. But Aegon is dead, and so is Rhaenys, and you bore Rhaegar no living child,” and she thought, _he doesn’t know about Jon._

Of course he didn’t; no one knew beyond her, Ned and Howland Reed.

_Why did I think he knew?_

“What do you _want_ from me?”

“Why, the same as everyone wants. The only thing I ever wanted, since Elia was butchered and the stag was crowned. I want fire and blood. And you, my darling Lady Stark, will help us get it.”


	17. The crowned stag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Stannis, and plans are set into motion.

“Lady Lyanna, please sit,” said Lord – nay, _King_ – Stannis.

They were on the solar. She was hard pressed to call it Stannis’s, when she saw Robert’s influence in everything, from the tapestries showing hunting scenes to the faint odor of sour wine and meat in the air. He’d enjoyed taking meals there, sometimes with his lords, sometimes not. Sometimes it would just be them and they’d talk about inconsequential things. He’d get pleasantly drunk, would smile at her and talk of love and dreams and of the babes they would have.

She’d never loved him. She’d never hated him.

Looking at that solar and knowing he was not there and would never be there again…

She did not mourn him, not the way she mourned Rhaegar and Brandon and her father, but she missed him, his boisterous laughter and the way he’d sometimes sidle up behind her and kiss her neck and hold her close to him.

There were two armchairs before the unlit hearth. Ser Arys Oakheart, on whose shoulder she leaned rather heavily, helped her into it as Stannis took the one across from her. Though there were enough similarities between the brothers (black hair, blue eyes, the same hardy, broad shoulders), he wasn’t Robert and something constricted inside her at the difference.

Then again, she was different, too. It’d taken her another week to gather her strength and join the world of the living. She was still weak, and pale. Sometimes she would have dizzy spells, trip on her own legs. Sometimes the world would turn red and she would wake in someone’s arms, holding her up so she would not fall.

(Once she came to with Jaime’s arms around her waist and wanted to die from the sudden flash of heat that ran through her at the contact, and the shame that followed.

And then it occurred to her that she was a widow; and being one, she owed no man anything.)

She’d been visited by Grandmaester Pycelle and was more convinced than ever that he was indeed a great fool – or, at the very least, too old to be of any real use. She accepted his potions and elixirs and whatever else he deemed necessary for her to take without protest, only to have Oberyn Martell (who  _had_  forged six links of his maester’s chain in the Citadel, easy though it was to forget that) change everything he’d ordered anyway and suggest other things she should take in place.

He visited her daily on the pretense of aiding her recovery, and he was not a man often denied what he wanted. What sort of madness possessed her to accept aid from the man who she was certain had attempted to kill her, she was not entirely sure.

Yet he had not harmed her. She’d recovered significantly in the week since waking – enough to have an audience with Stannis, who, unlike Prince Oberyn, considered improper to visit a convalescing lady in her sickbed when he was neither her brother, father or husband.

Stannis, too, had changed. He’d always been a grave, severe man, but now he looked the part more than ever: there were shadows on his face, a set to his jaw, that weren’t there when he was merely Robert’s Master of Ships.

He would be a better king than Robert. Lyanna knew this.

He would likely be a better king than Renly, too. Renly was popular and charming and oh so sweet, but he did not have the mental constitution to be a king, no more than Robert had, though in different ways. She knew this.

She wanted no part in this game. She knew this.

She had no choice but play it. This she also knew.

She knew there was a part of her, however small, that understood Prince Oberyn. She had lost a brother, too, for despicable reasons, to a man’s madness. She had lost a father. That part of her, that grief and rage she’d kept hidden for so long, it resonated with his rage and grief. Some part of her that thought of duty and thought of the future that was stolen from her – not by Robert, not quite, though she knew there was pain and rage directed at him as well, pain and rage she sublimated while they were married, because otherwise she would go mad.

Now there was Prince Oberyn Martell, a dangerous man, a powerful man, and he asked her something.

And she said yes. Not out of duty, not out of honor, not because he willed her to, but because it was her choice to do so. Because as of now, she was _free._

Now, however, she had to talk to Stannis, and so she made herself comfortable in the armchair she’d shared so many times over the past fifteen years and waited.

“You put me in a difficult position, my lady,” he said in a deliberate tone, as if he was not quite sure how to address her. She understood that; she was not entirely sure she knew, either. “I will speak plainly. Your brother wants you north. I am not entirely sure I should let you. You were the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms – and the reason why I now sit the throne, as is my right, albeit not my choice.”

No condolences, then, no how sorry he was for her loss or some other trite form of courtesy. She did not expect as much: Stannis Baratheon was a hard man, a strong man, even a good man, she expected, but he was not a gentle or social man. She had seen how cold his relationship with his own lady wife was, how he scarcely paid attention to his heir and daughter. She pitied him, a little.

“I wish to go home, Your Grace,” she said simply. “I have no place in court, I never had.”

Of course, it was not of her delicate sensibilities or desires that Stannis spoke of. It was of Ned’s support. For as long as she was there, she was a hostage – someone they could bargain for, barter with. Which was why she forestalled his reply with a gesture, leaning back into the armchair – she hated showing weakness but for this it might do her well to look frail.

“I am no longer young,” she said seriously, though she could not quite bring herself to look him in the eye. “I am no maid, and no great beauty. I never was, no matter what Robert said. I was wedded to your brother fifteen years and bore him no living heir. My reputation is shaky at best; I know this, however clear my own conscience is.”

As she said it, she knew it was. She felt guilt, yes, guilt like acid every time she thought of all they lost, the lives, the fifteen years of being wedded to a man she did not love, the son she never raised, for the childish impulse that led to such heartache… and yet even through the guilt and frustration and impotent rage she felt, she could not bring herself to think what she did with Rhaegar under the heart tree was dishonorable. That it was wrong when he draped his cloak over her shoulders and took her maidenhead in a bed of red and gold leaves beneath the stars – she would never regret that, she would never look at that night with shame. Not that night. Perhaps the events after – perhaps her lies to Robert or her rather unchaste thoughts about Jaime Lannister – but not that night.

And she knew that he would, because he was a honorable man with a great sense of justice and of what was right; just as she knew that her brother thought it shameful, that Robert, had he known the truth, would think her ruined, not because of what was done (she knew he had done the same to numerous women, some noble, some not), but because it was  _her_  and she was supposed to be  _his_. That she would have gone willingly to Rhaegar’s arms was a thought he would not have borne well.

“I have no claim that does not derive from my brother and Lord Eddard has children of his own, including daughters. I was queen, it was true, but the circumstances of my coronation were… unique, to say the least. My brother is a man of honor, you know this, and a great believer in justice; he will not turn his back to his rightful king. Your Grace, I have no ambition but to return to Winterfell, so I may spend my days as your brother’s widow and as an aunt to his children. I pose you no threat.”

_Don’t I, though?_

They were truths, though, all truths: she had no ambition beyond those, not now, not anymore. She had never had: she had never thought of being a queen, a great lady. She had no value as a wife, a woman who bore no children to a man who had several bastards. Oh, there would be some lordlings who _would_ wish to bed her, for her name, for what she meant and what she was; but, having buried both Rhaegar and Robert by now, she was positive no man would wish to tie themselves to her permanently, not anymore.

Just as well.

In the end they argued and counter-argued and she bargained and so did he. He convened with Lord Davos and agreed that he would do best to release her, that her value as a lady to be wedded was diminished by her infamous past and apparent infertility (in this Lord Davos seemed to disagree; whether because he was not a noble by birth or because he was made of different stuff, she could not tell, but she could see the kind look in his eyes, and it lightens her heart, if only a little) and that Eddard Stark was unlikely to go back on his offer of support and – even if he did – he would not change his mind for the sake of a disgraced sister.

The latter was a lie; she did believe Ned to love her enough to attempt to aid her. She did not, however, believe it would be necessary with regards to Stannis.

He still promised, if such was her wish, to find her a new husband among his bannermen, for Stannis Baratheon was a good man, a honorable man, and though he might disdain her for her actions and care very little for her as a person, he was a good lord. Perhaps a man of older age, already with heirs; she thanked him graciously and said she had no need for a husband.

That night in her chambers, later than was proper but beyond the watchful eyes of the court, she told Oberyn Martell that Stannis agreed to send her North. She would be joined by an entourage of men, handmaidens, the necessities of travel for a highborn lady in times of near war – not yet, but close enough.

Oberyn himself planned to remain at court, to fight at Stannis’s side, if needs must. He planned to send his wife and children south, however; it was only right, after all.

The very next day, Stannis Baratheon decided to banish Jaime Lannister to the Wall, as he maintained Robert should have done since the first day, for the crime of kingslaying; it was only Aerys’s madness and his own position as the son of Tywin Lannister that did not earn him a sword through the neck. It was agreed that Lyanna Stark’s entourage would also escort him north; these were trying times, after all, with betrayals at every corner, in Stannis Baratheon’s vision of the world. Betrayed by his own flesh and blood; slighted and forgotten; Stannis was a hard man, but a just man, and he would do as was right.

He did not trust her; but then, she did not trust him, either.

A week more and they departed on the long and tedious journey North.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrevised. Sorry!


	18. Sail away, sweet sister

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we have a conversation by the sea, and some truths are revealed (not that anyone doubted them).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a nuisance to write and still did not come right. Forgive!

The day Khal Drogo fell from his horse, thus signing the end of his  _khalasar_ , Lyanna Stark was violently sick into the waves and rued the day she agreed with Stannis that travel by ship was the best option.

Except, it  _was_ : there were armies on the march, from Storm’s End to meet with the forces from the Reach, however relaxed and slow their pace was. She knew her brother was rising his own host at the north – much against his will, but he was, being the ever-dutiful Ned Stark – and hoping to rally the riverlords to them as well. It was a remarkably calm, civilized attempt at a coup, she knew. Renly was not vicious and neither was Stannis, not quite, for which she was duly thankful, even if they were arrogant and stubborn enough to believe they had the same claim to a throne that was never theirs to begin with. Relaxed or not, it would nonetheless be unwise of her to take the long journey north through the Kingsroad when there were armies on the move.

Thus, the ship. Thus, the sickness.

And there would be another fortnight, she thought, until they reached White Harbor. From there, they would follow on foot to Winterfell.

Behind her there was a clinking of chains and she need not turn to see who it was. It was so undignified, she thought, for a former Kingsguard to wear chains like a common criminal – arms  _and_  legs, unarmed and unarmored – but Stannis did not trust him and, if she was honest, neither would she. She rather doubted Tywin Lannister would be happy to see his son banished to the Wall, not for love of him (she doubted Tywin Lannister loved anyone at all, at least since his wife died on the bloody bed), but for the sheer _principle_  of it, and she did not quite believe the Kingslayer so honorable as to accept his fate meekly, either.

Except on a ship there was nowhere he could possibly run. That they still kept him in chains, why, that was only an added insult. She knew that, and he knew that, and she was reminded of the words Tyrion once told her about, the unofficial family motto: _a Lannister always pays his debts._

He looked as sick as she felt, too, though for different reasons. She felt sorry for him.

It was a rather awkward feeling, especially when he leaned on the rail beside her, silent, watching the waves, though she doubted he saw anything at all. Now the nausea had abated she could admire the sights – and it was beautiful, the way the sunset painted the sea scarlet and gold. Lannister colors, she thought.

“Seasick?” he asked, but the tone was distant, conversation for conversation’s sake.

She shrugged. It wasn’t the sea that made her ill, though it did not help, either. She was still weak, after a month of pain and delirium, though she’d recovered quite well, but the things she had to take to – Oberyn’s words – true and well repair the damage done to her body sometimes made her sick.

“Are you?” and she knew, as he did, that it wasn’t about seasickness at all that she was talking about.

He shrugged, darted a look at her; back to the waves. There were dolphins now, she saw, trailing the ship like little guardians. They made her smile, for some reason, the lean gray bodies breaking the waves in what looked like a dance to her, or a celebration. For some reason it resonated with her, calmed the sickness and the ever-present doubts and worries inside her.

It was only after they had disappeared back into the sea that she noticed he was watching her.

“What?” she mumbled, suddenly self-conscious.

“I don’t think I ever saw you smile like that,” he said and, inexplicably, she blushed.

The night went on, however, the last shards of sunlight vanishing, and the ship went on – she could sense the guards milling about, playing at dice and probably challenging each other in bets, as men were wont to, with the sailors. No one was paying attention to them; not even them.

“Why did you do it?”

She’d been so absorbed in watching the sea that she almost didn’t hear it. Odd, after a fashion; at the Keep she was always so aware of him, his presence. It made her nervous and high-strung. Here, though, in the sea, with nothing and no one to care, she found it far less – disturbing, she thought.

_I am a widow. I am allowed to find a man who is not my lord husband attractive._

That was not it, though. Her body still reacted to him and her mind still conjured scenarios she would rather live without and that she knew would never happen. There were still nights when she woke burning with frustrated desire, after dreams she would rather not have, would not  _allow_  herself to have. Still, something of the madness, the shame and the confusion was gone right out of her.

_I’m free._

It was such a strange, unfamiliar thing, freedom.

“Did what?” she said eventually, before he could ask again.

“Run with Rhaegar Targaryen.”

_Ah. That._

Of course he would ask her that. She wondered whether anyone else would have.

“I was abducted,” she said in a blatant, obvious lie and she need not look at him to know he’d be giving her that  _look_  he did sometimes, whenever he was met with someone being deliberately obtuse. She’d seen him direct such looks to the Red Keep’s squires more often than not.

She snorted. It was rather unladylike; she did not care. She had never been a lady, anyway.

How could she ever explain that to a man?

When she spoke, though, the softness in her voice surprised even her, soft enough he had to draw closer to her side, to hear her over the crash of the sea. Surprisingly, it did not bother her, that proximity.

“Have you ever wanted someone, ser? Not just lust. That sort of want, that sort of _need_ for everything that person represents. You want his approval, his delight, his love; you want his sex, too, among other things, but that is not the most important thing. No, what you want is what they mean to you: safety, love. Freedom. Joy.

I was four and ten when my father betrothed me to Robert Baratheon and by then I already knew two things: one, that I had no choice but do my duty; two, that he was not the sort of man I thought I wanted. Oh, I was young and I knew nothing of men. Robert was not as bad as I thought. I did my duty, in the end.”

She paused, thought; sighed, a little.

“You are a man, ser, but you have a sister to whom you are very close,” she smiled; the image of them in the hall, so achingly beautiful together, was one she could not quite forget. “So you must know at least a little about it. Highborn women, we… we are taught to sew, to sing, to rule a household; we are taught politics and history insofar as is relevant for a woman of high station to learn, no more. We are grown to be wives and mothers, to be charming and dutiful and chaste. We are meant to be pleasant to men and little else. Most of the time, we are means to an end, born for alliances and the breeding of children, to bleed and breed and little else.

That is not to say we are mere objects for men to play with. I am sure your sister would object to such label, as would I. And there are houses like the Mormonts, who know the worth of a woman with an axe, and people as the Dornish, who do not forget their girl-children and their worth as rulers as well as wives.

Of course, the same could be said of highborn men. You could argue heirs are also wedded for political purposes but ser, no one would expect a young vigorous knight to marry and ugly or older maid, or to marry against his choice, or to marry as soon as he was able to bed a woman. And even when there is no choice, few would begrudge you for seeking solace elsewhere. Oh, they may not accept it, they may turn up their noses, but that would not diminish you. Quite the opposite, there would be talk of your virility, of your strength as a man. It would not make you a – faithless whore. It would not make you scum. It would not end with you beaten, cast aside, or worse.”

She thought of Robert, the women he’d bedded – the bastards. He’d had Mya Stone before Lyanna was even a woman grown. She did not begrudge him his pleasure, either, which surprised her. She always though men and women should be allowed to find their solace where they could. Life was so short, after all, and so fragile. Was she supposed to feel? Yet she felt shame whenever her mind dared to stray to someone who was not her lord husband. How strange, these double standards – but then, she was not so special as to not be bound by the chains every other woman in the realm was.

“So you ask, why? Ser, you knew him. You know what sort of man he was,” and she thought, how young she’d been, how naïve and yet there was still the… appeal, the magnetism, the draw, even now, after so long…

“I was four and ten, scarcely more than a child. I was glorying in the thrill of being young, of having eyes turn to me. Of being seen, noticed, desired. For once in my life I had power, even if only little.”

It occurred to her then that though she’d had a few eyes turn to her, those of a young Jaime Lannister were not among them. She had not even realized that she noticed, then, as she’d seen very little other than Rhaegar. It did not surprise her: growing with a beauty such as Cersei Lannister by his side, she, and she suspected most women, paled in comparison.

“He crowned me as his Queen of Love and Beauty. Me. Not Ashara Dayne, who was the great beauty of our time. Not Elia Martell, his wife. Not your lady sister, though I suppose she was not there at the time for him to crown. This man who every maid in the Seven Kingdoms fantasized about, desired. This man who was loved by his smallfolk, who was held as some sort of legendary hero; who was accomplished as a knight, as a scholar, as a musician; who would reduce women to tears with his song; who made _me_ cry, with a song.”

Gods, he did. He always did, even after.  _Sing me a song_ , she would ask, and he would sing, fingers drumming his high harp, and she would cry, there naked in their rumpled sheets, and he'd go to her when he was done, kiss the tears from her cheeks.

“This man chose _me_ , a northern girl who’d never been south of the Neck, who was no great beauty and whose only appeal was her claim to Winterfell, as a Stark. A dubious claim, as I had three living brothers at the time.

I was terrified. I was afraid of the consequences. Robert was right there. We just met that day. He would take it as a slight, I knew.

Yet I was – I was excited. I was moved. I was _proud._ I had very little cause to be proud, ser, but when he chose me, I was.”

Oh, had she been – it was like it happened the day before, the way her body heated up in a blush, the way she’d prayed no one noticed how her hands shook when the took the laurel crown he’d laid on her lap, the way she’d been wrecked with nerves and something so unfamiliar and so utterly _new_ burning up inside of her, making her feel.

“He’d send me letters, after. I never knew how; they would just appear on my pillow or somewhere I would always find it. I would leave replies by the heart tree and they would be gone…”

She never _did_ learn how that happened.

“They were not love letters; had he pursued me in that manner, I suspect my northern sensibilities would have made me reject him. No, he addressed me – as an equal. He told me of court matters, told me about his wife and his children, how Aegon grew stronger each day, how lovely Rhaenys was. He did not seem to think me stupid, or some brainless maid he had to seduce with sugarcoated courtesies.

Then, one day – it was not so long after Harrenhal – he wrote _I will be there in a fortnight. Meet me in the godswood._ ”

She did. Oh, did she ever. He played her so well, and she only saw it years later, when she was Robert's Queen and had the time and the clearheadedness to _see_.

“So I tell you, ser, I went with him not because he was handsome, not because he was strong, not for his nobility, his sensibility – yes, I wanted him for that, as much as I had ever wanted anyone else, but it was more than that. I went with him because it was my choice. Not my father’s and not my brothers’, _mine._ Because he was my choice as much as I was his. I may have chosen him out of childish desires and naïveté, yes, and it was a choice that was no choice at all, after the way he played me,  _but_ _I chose him_. That was precious, that was important and ser, I do not regret it. I regret the consequences of my actions, yes, how could I not? We got so many killed, Rhaegar and I. But choosing him? Never.”

The moon was high in the sky, she noticed; starlight caught on the chains between his hands, glinting silver. He’d been leaning on the rail by her side, almost too close, though it was not improperly so and he was watching the waves, no longer staring at her. It did not feel like a slight, or disinterest.

The silence stretched, on and on, and it did not feel forced, tense or strained at all. For that, she was thankful.

Her fingertips brushed the manacle on his wrist, unbidden. The skin beneath them was sore; she would have to talk to his guards, see that they took it off, only a little. They were on a ship; he had nowhere to run, not really.

He darted a glance at her, then, as if he couldn’t possibly imagine what she was thinking, what she was doing. She suspected he truly couldn’t. She could not, either, understand what possessed her to tell him the sordid story of her past, in such long-winded detail. Perhaps it was because he had his own demons, or because she’d never told anyone, or for someone other reason altogether she did not bother to name.

Her heart beat steady inside her chest,  _thump thump thump._ She was tired; she had spoken quite a bit. Things she had never really told anyone. Then again, no one ever thought to ask her before. Of course it would be him to ask.

_Rhaegar believed in fate._

When the silence grew too much, she said, “good night, ser,” and went back to her cabin.

It took her a long time to fall sleep.


	19. A lion in chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jaime is imprisoned and Lyanna has an offer.

The day Daenerys Targaryen walked into the funeral pyre, the ship docked on White Harbor.

Lyanna Stark was avoiding him. Just as well, as he did not care to repeat the experience by the rail. At least, that was what he told himself as he lay with the horses in the dark, ankles bound like some common prisoner. They’d released his wrists for a whooping three hours before binding them again, which was why he was confined with the horses, he supposed. He’d have laughed and indeed he had when they first bound him, but no matter. That was not even the worst; he was used to the smell of horse, leather and sweat.

What had possessed him to ask her that was beyond him, but he had not expected the she-wolf to bolt after. Licking her wounds in the dark, he was sure. Disappointing; the woman took her husband’s death with nary a tear and now…

He knew, though. He’d missed Cersei so much that he’d wanted – someone else’s pain, he thought. Pitiful, he supposed, but that was that. The idea he’d be separated from her, potentially forever, freezing his balls on the Wall while she – but no. Best not to think of that.

He had no intention of staying at the Wall, anyway.

Stannis told the she-wolf that Robert died after falling from his horse and breaking his neck. That was the official version that, much like the she-wolf’s story about being abducted and raped, nobody really believed in because Robert Baratheon might be a great fool but he knew how to ride, even roaring drunk as he’d been. Something about hearing his wife cry out for her alleged rapist between moans of pain.

That last part, he could get. Robert fled the Keep for the Kingswood not long after his wife lost the babe, about a week later, when she showed no sign of improvement and her whimpers and cries flooded the entire of Maegor’s Holdfast. That was when she started calling for Rhaegar. He’d looked distraught, the day he finally came out of her chambers. Took no Kingsguard (he’d set them to guard the she-wolf), not even Stark, only a few guards and went off to butcher things until whatever was eating him inside went away.

His life did instead. A risk anyone ran, truly.

Oberyn Martell apparently told the she-wolf something else, though, because those two were _awful_ close ever since she woke. There was something about it he didn’t like, the way they conspired together at all hours, _improper_ hours. Jaime knew because he was there. He’d stand guard, if not before her door, down the same corridor or elsewhere and besides, he’d learned to stay attuned to that damned sand bastard’s movements ever since he married Cersei.

No, he didn’t like that at all.

Even if it _did_ give him more time with Cersei, which was always good ( _very_ good), but –

_Are they fucking?_

He did not know why that thought bothered him. He didn’t know why any man would look beyond his sister, but Oberyn Martell was not any man, and the idea of that damned Red Viper slithering into someone else’s bed – _Lyanna Stark_ ’s bed – was unthinkable, was absurd.

The utter _irony_ of it, though, her being a Stark; Lord Eddard looked at him as if he was scum because of what he’d done – what none of them had the guts to do – as if he was worth any less than him because what he did was not _honorable_ , just as it hadn’t been _honorable_ to defend Rhaella Targaryen. Jaime would bet his sword hand that his tune would change entirely if it was his sister or one of his daughters getting raped by that monster Aerys whenever he got to burn someone. Rhaella was neither to Jaime, but still.

Of course, Lord Stark wasn’t like to respect him any more if he knew the reason of little Brandon Stark’s fall from that tower. The boy was crippled for life, he knew. Cersei gave him such grief, after, but what was he supposed to do? Let the child babble to the Seven Kingdoms about what he’d seen? They were like to get - he was not sure. Punished, certainly; the fate was not like to agree on it. No, incest was for Targaryens, not for Lannisters, but so what? He loved her, why could he not have her?

 _‘Have you ever wanted someone, ser?’_ she’d asked and he wanted to laugh because did he ever. The thought brought a smile to his face, even now, relegated to the company of the horses in the asphyxiating bowels of the ship. He had never, regretted her, not once, how could he? She was his other half, his better half, as good as his own limbs, his own beating heart.

He thought of her then, of how soft and warm and _his_ she was, but that brought other thoughts to mind, of her with the _damned_ bastard, and the familiar rage tearing at his veins because he knew she did not exactly shy from her husband’s bed. Quite the opposite, in fact, she’d seemed to – _like_ him, want him, he wasn’t sure he cared to know the difference. Like him enough to bed him willingly, to _smile_ at him, genuine smiles, not the sort of courtly flash of teeth he’d seen so often in Lyanna Stark’s face. That hurt.

If that was what Robert Baratheon felt all the time, lying beside his wife and knowing she was thinking of another, suspecting she did, anyway, he could sympathize with the great lout’s need to get drunk and forget. Not that Jaime would, he knew better than that, but he could understand.

He’d been lost in thoughts for awhile, he reasoned, because he didn’t notice when the men came to drag him out until he was blinking against the sudden light, blinded, and there was the she-wolf astride her horse like she was born on the saddle (he could respect that, the woman was a good rider if ever there was one), on the shore, and he was unceremoniously carted away, half-dragged, to meet Lord Wyman Manderly’s waiting escort, sans one Lord Too-Fat-to-Sit-a-Horse. They’d reached White Harbor in time, then.

Not that it made any difference to him; he supposed he was going to be stuck there until Lady Stark deigned to continue north.

Said Lady Stark who disappeared after she demanded his manacles gone (only the hands, they weren’t such fools, but they _did_ keep him locked). After telling him such things in the gray dark. After pouring her sweet little heart out. The Lady Stark who looked at him like – well, he was used to looks. Ever since he was a green boy who barely knew what to do with his cock. Still, it amused him to no end, her looks. Not so honorable, he thought; not if she’d look at him like that and pretend not to notice when he noticed.

She wasn’t looking at him now, though, riding ramrod straight with that sort of single-minded determination that he had, unwittingly, come to admire in her. Even straight like an arrow like that, she was not tense, and it hurt his pride a little to know she probably could handle that little bay mare of hers better than he could the rouncey they’d set him on.

They never did have their joust.

She was all smiles to Wyman Mandely’s heir, the one who welcomed her, of course she would be; the woman was queen for so long these courtesies were probably second nature to her. He watched in amusement as they traded pleasantries, the boy trying to be gallant and the she-wolf ignoring it as politely as she could.

The amusement fled the moment he realized they were talking about him.

“He is meant for the Wall,” she said, cool as ever, and it jolted him, to realize he hadn’t heard her open contempt for quite awhile, since that day on the kingsroad, in fact, when he laid her on her back. To hear it again filled him with anger and, inexplicably, dismay; seemed like things changed the moment he was not useful anymore. “We are to escort him to Winterfell. From there the Night’s Watch will take over.”

 _So that’s how it’s going to be,_ he thought, and snorted.

She noticed. There was a strange look in his eyes, for a moment, as if she was measuring him up, which he didn’t like. Not that he was afraid of her, or anyone, but with his hands tied, well, he probably _could_ still kill quite a bit of them – he was outnumbered, though, and had no wish to die now. Best wait for a proper moment.

So when they led him to the prison cell in the Wolf’s Den ( _what a bunch of bootlickers_ , he thought), he went tamely enough. Then it was back to the darkness and damp and chill that burrowed into his bones and chains that chafed at his dignity far more than they chafed at his skin while Lady Stark played her court games with Wylis Manderly and whoever else.

Time shuffled on, went by; he waited, and ate what was given to him, and bided his time until he lost count of the days and night as they went by in the same monotony of eating and shitting and breathing.

It was an easy enough life, for a prisoner, even if he _was_ still chained, even behind the thick iron-reinforced door, and the chains connecting his hands to his ankles (not long enough that he could stand or lie comfortably) was affixed to the wall of his cell, long enough to move but not long enough to flee. At first it was a mere inconvenience, but as time went by (and he’d lost track of it, at some point) his shoulders and back and hips started to hurt, and they didn’t let on.

Even if his claim was forfeit and with it his life, it seemed they still had some respect for his name, or fear, he did not know. Most likely the latter, but this up north, with the almost fanatical loyalty they held for the Starks, he knew very well who had the power in this little game of theirs, here, and it was not him.

And he knew that while he might wonder whether the Lady Lyanna was trading more than words and maester services with Lord Oberyn; while he knew that she looked at him like she wanted him; while he knew that she was not as strict in her duties as her brother; she was dutiful and honorable enough to not care for a prisoner condemned to take the black just on the strength of her desire.

Which was why he was immensely surprised when one night, as he lay on the floor in his dark cell, chasing sleep, he was jolted to awareness by the sound of a key in the lock and a soft voice calling out, “Ser Jaime?”

_I’m more desirable than I thought, then._

“Lady Lyanna!” he flashed a knowing smile, though she could not see it. it surprised him, how hoarse he sounded; _how long has it been?_ “Miss me already?”

“No,” she said, and her voice wasn’t defensive or irritated, just calm. She did not advance more than the length of his leash; the she-wolf was not stupid. She crouched by the door, the light from the outside just serving to drench her in shadows rather than absolute dark. She bore no lamp, he noticed, or anything at all.

“I leave for Pentos tonight,” she said, and he blinked. _Why?_

“Come to say goodbye, then?” he laughed, but it sounded weak even to him, and for some reason it filled him with panic; she was one of the few people who did not seem to see him as a monster.

(No, just as an ersatz for her dead lover.)

But she ignored him, as he expected her to, head cocking to the side like a curious bird. He could see it only as a shift in the shadows and that unsettled him as well.

“I come to give you a choice,” she said quietly, quiet enough he had to shuffle closer, until his chains would not let him near. “I will undo the locks on your wrists and ankles and see you free. From there, I give you a choice: either you attempt to flee on your own, becoming a deserter from the Night’s Watch, deep in the North where my brother’s justice is well known and your name is worth little and less; or you may come with me to Pentos and aid me on my mission. I assume you do not wish to become a crow.”

_Mission? What is the she-wolf barking about? Is she mad? Pentos?_

“And what mission would that be? I must say freedom is very tempting, but so is keeping my head…”

“Why, ser,” she said, and while he could not see, not really, he could well imagine the smile on her face, one he had seen only once when he met her by the kingsroad and they dueled, if you could name such massively unbalanced challenge a duel. It was a feral smile, a wolf’s grin, and it made something unknown in him take notice. “A mission of fire and blood, of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The problem with writing other people's characters is that I'm always afraid of being OOC and ruining them. That's why I prefer Lyanna, who we barely know.


	20. A sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes, if heroes they may be named, arrive in Pentos and Lyanna gets a sword.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladies and gents, I would like to thank you for the immense support you've showed me! It is so encouraging, you have no idea!
> 
> That said, I would like to apologize for the horrid wait and the even more horrid chapter. I struggled with this one, not because it is anywhere near special but because my brain is already running away to future chapters and all this wait totally sucks. I restarted this one like, three or four times, and it still sucks. I am sorry.
> 
> Also, I edited the previous chapter a little; I changed their destination from Braavos to Pentos - mainly for plot reasons and because I'd forgotten something very important that happens in Pentos.
> 
> Love you all <3

“Magister Illyrio,” she said, flowing into an automatic curtsy. It did not surprise her, how quickly her courtesies had come back, how easily, even in this exotic land.

“My Lady Lyanna,” he answered in the sweet, flowing bastard Valyrian, with a hint of Braavosi accent; it made her think of Syrio Forel and water dancing with little Arya. Where would he be now, she wondered, behind the walls of the Red Keep or riding to war with Stannis? Or had he gone with her brother, to teach his charge, as he must?

They reclined on one of the many, fenced in gardens of the cheesemonger’s manse – that was how Robert named him, _cheesemonger_ , always in a deprecating manner; and yet he was richer, much richer than Robert ever was. The rings on his fingers glowed in the light of the torches, the wine served was of good quality (Arbor gold, according to her preference, how did he know?), there was such luxury and calm on the manse, so unlike the stern coldness of Winterfell and the arrogance of the Red Keep…

This land was beautiful, so beautiful, in its exotic colors and clear summer skies – always bright, always summer, Magister Illyrio told her, and she who was born in the winter lands could well believe it. She’d been forced to trade her northern dresses for her light summer silks and then been gifted by the magister with even lighter, gauzier dresses that made her uncomfortable. They were too light, too bright, exposed too much with their naked backs and plunging necklines, meant to flatter but they did not flatter her: Lyanna was always tall, taller than most, as was common in northern women, and not quite curvaceous. Her were breasts small, though not flat, and her hips narrow and almost boyish. She was slim, even in her age, but bony and wiry, more athletic than feminine.

She wore one such dress that evening, blinding white and so sheer she thought men could see through it, listening to the hum of the nightlife far in the distance outside the manse. Somewhere, a fountain bubbled merrily. The food served was rich, but she took only to fruits and other vegetables, eschewing the richer meats and breads served on silver-gold platters. Her fingers fiddled with the hem of the dress.

“I thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” she said and smiled and thought. “I must confess I was unsure what to expect, but this… Pentos is beautiful, but Magister Illyrio’s home is the jewel upon its crown,” she smiled and he laughed; he knew flattery when he heard it, but he also heard what was not said.

“My lady,” he replied in turn, “I surely hope you will enjoy your stay among us.”

“My lord, I would be delighted, though our stay depends on the winds and the next step on the dance, so to speak. Tell me, what is the news on the Free Cities?”

They conversed in this manner about the market and the price of spices, the impending conflicts between Myr and Lys and other such subjects as reclined on the soft pillows, Lyanna utterly self-conscious of the exposed skin and Magister Illyrio almost a mythical figure with his forked yellow beard and the great breadth of his body. He was oddly graceful, in spite of the weight: she suspected it was due to his bravo training. So unlike Lord Manderly – and yet, both men had more in common than one would tell at first, and not because of their weight, as one might think. There was quickness to their minds, a sort of craftiness… yes; they were more alike than most people would guess.

By the time their supper was served he summoned a servant to present her a gift; she eyed the copper collar on the servant girl’s neck and swallowed her distaste. Her Westerosi sensibilities rejected the idea of collared servants, but this was not her manse and not her place to question.

She forgot all about it when she saw what lay on the ebony box presented to her.

“ _My lord,_ ” she exclaimed, a little breathless. “This is too much!”

It was only the most beautiful sword she had even seen, and she’d seen her father wield Ice for many years.

It was slim in the bravo style, light as Arya’s Needle was. The pommel was a deep black she suspected was dragonbone, inlaid with a faint but beautiful silver filigree, portraying – her breath caught – a direwolf and a dragon intertwined, surrounded by roses. The blade was slender and very sharp and pale as milkglass and _that_ made her gasp because she knew of only one sword that had such a blade.

“It is not enough to honor such a great lady,” said the merchant, smooth as silk. Untrue as well, as no lady would ever accept a blade such as this, because no lady would ever have use for it. She had no sons ( _but I do, oh, I do_ ) to pass it to – but she believed she was not meant to gift it to a heir, but wield it as she must. “I heard you like to fight?”

“Yes,” she said, taking hold of the sword to test the weight and balance of it. “My lord father has never allowed such a thing, not as he lived, but not long ago I had dancing lessons with Syrio Forel, First Sword of Braavos, on the Red Keep. He taught my niece and did not mind me joining. This is a priceless gift, my lord, one I cannot hope to repay.”

(It occurred to her,  _how did he know?_ , but it went, much as her concern for the collared servant went.)

He tittered (it reminded her of Varys, absurdly, though the men could not be less alike) as the servant withdrew, silent as a ghost, and she replaced the sword in its box – the box itself was beautiful, ebony inlaid with the same filigree as the handle, also in silver. She would need a scabbard to hold it, a sword belt and breeches, she thought, both for riding and for living.

She was free. She had no man to tell her what she should be like.

“We may practice,” said the man behind her, followed by a clink of metal, and Lyanna started. She had forgotten his presence entirely, she realized, a first since they left the Red Keep, a first since Robert assigned him as her personal guard. His voice was so low she almost did not hear it – he spoke to her alone.

She knew why, too. He was restless, had been since they board on the sellsail’s ship out of White Harbor. Even though he was used to the relative monotony of the Red Keep, there were men to train, duties to follow. The long journey must be getting on his nerves – it was getting on hers, too.

“We may,” she said and marveled at the thrill in the pit of her stomach, one that had as much to do with the concept of practicing her sword fighting with  _him_  – one of the best, if not  _the_  best, swordsman in Westeros.

She decided right then that she would be better than him.

It was childish and stupid and she did not care.

She was still unused to his presence – odd, after so long _in_ his presence – the hiss of mail shadowing her steps, ever since they docked in Pentos. It was not as good quality or as fit to him as his, but it was good enough; she’d had to steal it from White Harbor.

_And what will you do with him, now?_

That was a good question. She had never thought he would agree to come with her and in fact was sure he wouldn’t, but apparently Jaime Lannister was good at not doing what you expected him to do. Oh, he’d called her mad, after she gave him the bare bones of her plans – too little for him to sell to anyone, especially not his family, but enough to intrigue him. He’d called her quite a lot of things, in fact, and mad was only one such. She’d marveled at his creativity in choosing epithets for her.

(Then she smiled, asked whether he was quite finished deriding her and her entire eight thousand year old lineage, and what his answer was.)

He came anyway, and she was – not proud, because she could not fathom _why_ he did it, when he could have run to his father, or simply _run_. He hadn’t, however. He followed her.

She was not even sure she should be thankful that he had. Her offer was a foolhardy one, one borne of – what? Out of a childish crush, maybe, or out of loneliness. Out of her seven-damned _impulsiveness._ Because he was familiar and because he’d treated her kindly during Robert’s final days. Selfishness was always her sin, was it not?

Yet where she was going he was not meant to follow. It would be needlessly complicated, it would endanger her mission, if mission it was, it would endanger _him_ and that would be, like Rhaegar, like Robert, like Brandon and Father, that would be another death that was entirely her fault.

She let that thought die, because it was not useful and he _had_ come with her and now she had to face the consequences of having a kingslayer by her side.

It stayed with her, though, and later that night as she lay on the bedchamber provided for her, sleepless, she thought and thought on it. She was not surprised, then, as she finally fell asleep, to see him in her dreams: not Jaime, who had no thought for his own safety and thought himself invincible, but the one she always saw, even when she tried to forget, even when she knew she _should_ forget because that way lay madness.

(Sometimes she dreamed of him making love to her, the feel of his touches, of his kisses. _Fifteen years_ and she could remember them as well as if they had never parted.

Sometimes, though, she dreamed of him like this: alive, talking to her, smiling at her, talking statecraft, telling her about Elia and the children. In so many ways, he had been as much a child as she, thinking they would prevail, that he would fix the damages his father did, that they would reign together, the three of them – that Elia would accept her, the children would love her…

Sometimes she dreamed of him, when he was not the silver prince that stole her and wedded her and bedded her and gave her a child, but that he was the man he was – singing and playing the harp and laughing as if, for once in his life, he was truly happy because of her; because she was there.

Those dreams were the worst.)

And when she woke alone and panting for breath in her Pentoshi room, when she woke with tears in her eyes and longing like a physical ache constricting her chest, she wanted to scream, _why? Why did you leave me behind?_

 _Because he needs you,_ the wind said. _Because they need you. Because winter is coming and who will save them?_

And how could she refuse?


	21. Horselords

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our not-so-heroic heroes meet a khal, and learn all sorts of interesting things we the readers already knew.

They were practicing their dancing in the gardens when the young servant that was assigned to her came to fetch her. He was a Lysene boy, slim and of a blond so light it looked white and eyes of such deep blue that her breath caught when she first saw him.

 _He is young enough to be your son,_  was her first thought when Illyrio presented him to her and that hurt, because she imagined he would look not dissimilar from Aegon or whatever children she bore to Rhaegar. It was not surprising she’d developed such affection to the boy: he was gentle, sweet, and he had a bronze collar on his neck.

 _Slave._  It made her fingers tighten on the hilt of her training sword.

“Up,” said her dancing partner and she reacted on instinct before he could slice at her neck – she was distracted, an unforgivable sin if this was a real fight. “You overreach yourself. Again.” She spun on her heel, closer to him; he had the better reach and the advantage of strength and, if she had to catch a blow, she would most likely not be able to withstand it, so she compensated with speed, alertness and being too close for him to have the necessary range and freedom of movement to attack.

She found and opening in his defense soon enough, dropping out of his blow as to lay the point of her training sword under his arm, where the weak point of his armor would be. He laughed.

“Better,” he said, which, coming from him, was high praise.

They were in Pentos for more than a month, practicing every day for at least a few hours; it helped with the restlessness and the dreams, she thought. By night she was so sore and so tired she had no thoughts for anything but sleep, deep and untroubled as she hadn’t had in years, and that alone made her glad he’d taken him with her. In the cold light of day, she could admit it was quite unlikely she would be able to endeavor her journey alone.

Now, though, the boy was there, watching them in undisguised awe, and he never interrupted during their dancing lessons, unless it was for a few reasons, particular reasons.

“Milady,” he said, bowing before her. It was an odd habit for such a young boy; it made her smile. “The magister says a  _khalasar_  has arrived. He says you wished to meet them.”

“Thank you,” she said, and ran her fingers through the boy’s hair on a whim. He was no older than ten, she thought, maybe even younger; he had such a pretty smile, too.

They left the manse soon enough, after a bath and a change of clothes, to the place where  _khals_  were sheltered when they deigned to ‘visit’ Pentos, her in the dark gray breeches and tunic she’d acquired on their second day there (a homage to her house colors, if nothing else), hair braided in the northern fashion, kept out of the way and the sword slung around her waist; him in mail, shadowing her steps in the way they were used to, back in the Red Keep.

( _Every great sword has a name_  she could remember her father telling Brandon and Ned.  _Ours is Ice._ )

When Jaime asked her what she’d named it, she only smiled and said nothing.

(In her mind, she named hers Dragon’s Bitch. It seemed appropriate.)

It was a cool night in Pentos. She had got used to the smell and the sense of the place in the intervening days since their arrival and the feel of wind and heat on her skin were almost as natural as the ever-present stench of King’s Landing – better, because at least the air was cleaner and with a hint of salt to it. She’d even earned a tan, somewhat, which did absolutely no favors to her, and had involved a precious old time of peeling and pain until her body adjusted to it.

The men were, as custom, camped outside the city halls – twenty thousand strong, plus the women, children and slaves. She’d heard by then of Khal Drogo’s death: the story flew faster than one might think, because it came on the wake of even more fantastical stories. Khal Drogo who was the last ( _legitimate_ ) Targaryen’s husband, father of the child Robert had wanted to kill in her womb. Such irony, that Robert would end dead instead and his own child not even given a chance to grow.

(Just like the several others she would have conceived throughout their wedded life.)

As custom, the  _khal_  was given a manse – it had been Khal Drogo’s at some point, she knew from Magister Illyrio. He had told her about the affair at Daenerys’s wedding and the reason behind it: Viserys wanted an army to take back his birthright and Khal Drogo’s forty thousand Dothraki screamers were to be that army. The manse was to soothe the  _khals_ and prevent a raiding of the city itself. This  _khal_  was one of Khal Drogo’s army, which had splintered on his death, and thus like to have known Daenerys.

 _Any information is information,_  she’d told Magister Illyrio.  _I need to know more about them, in any case._

What she did not say was that she  _was_  curious, genuinely so. The Westerosi men painted the Dothraki as barbarians, but from what she’d learned from Magister Illyrio, reading between the lines, they were fierce fighters and seemed to have a sort of honor of their own – a honor that may be not as that of the Free Cities or Westeros, but was honor nonetheless. She had learned a long time ago that even supposed men of honor could do barbaric things. She’d learned from the Kingslayer’s own mouth, after all, what Viserys’s father did to his own wife – not an enemy, as her father, not a potential threat, as her brother, but his own wife.

She knew better than to judge people before knowing them. She knew very well, what prejudice and hatred felt like.

“The Lady Lyanna of House Stark, Queen Dowager of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm,” sang the eunuch announcing their presence (another sign of barbarism, she thought, and remembered Varys, the distrust he had not because of his profession as Master of Whispers but for what he  _was_  – something he had had no control over. She, too, mistrusted Varys, but he being a eunuch was not why). “Her honorable host, Illyrio Mopatis, Magister of the Free City of Pentos!”

They went through the arch and into the courtyard where the guests milled, her hand folded demurely on Illyrio’s arm, though it was wholly at odds with her masculine outfit, not that she cared. There were, as per usual, sellswords, people from Myr and Tyrosh, bravos, the assorted population that made up the Pentoshi equivalent of nobility and power and their own guests.

Two things occurred to her then. The first was that she was the only woman in the room. She was gladder than ever that she had shirked the gauzy, revealing Pentoshi dresses for far more practical breeches and tunics, as the last thing she needed was to be exposed in such company.

The second was that, had Viserys convinced the Khal Drogo and his forty thousand Dothraki to cross the Narrow Sea to Westeros, they would have stood no chance.

Oh, she was used to soldiers and knights. She used to think the latter were the elite, strong and noble in their warhorses, with their plated armors flashing – that was she first saw her silver prince as, after all, the sight that made her entire body seize in desire. She’d grown up with brothers and her own father, tall and solemn and strong even in his age, stronger than many. She was not unlike Sansa, she thought, when she was a child and loved knights and maidens fair…  _she_  had wanted to be a warrior princess, but still.

Those knights would stand not a chance against a Dothraki horde.

“That is Khal Jhoqo,” Illyrio told her in a hushed voice as they traversed to his side, not that she needed him to: whether the men were as barbaric as the Westerosi and the people of the Free Cities thought, she did not know, but they certainly looked the part. The man was not so much tall (though he was that, too, if not exceptionally so) as he was  _strong_ , the leather vest and horsehair breeches accenting his ruddy skin and muscles, the black hair long, shining with oil and braided with bells twined in it. She knew each bell was for an enemy defeated. He had quite a few. She could see scars, pink and pale on his tanned skin, crisscrossed his chest: the trophies of battles past.

The Dothraki did not wear armor; they thought it craven. Once she would have thought that a disadvantage, but seeing the _khal_ and his bloodriders in person spoke of something else altogether. The lack of armor made them light, agile and deadly where a knight would be hampered by the limited mobility of his armor. They used bows even from horseback – the kind of agility necessary to do that, the kind of _strength_ needed to do that – she could well imagine. Take the horse from beneath a knight and before he was even able to right himself he would be dead.

She thought of the Dornish, who fought much as the Dothraki did, on horseback, with mounted archers, light armor and resilient, agile steeds that could well last a day without tiring. Dorne, who had not been conquered even with dragons, not even by Aegon the Conqueror.

She thought of Jaime, trailing silent behind her and Illyrio, and wondered how long he, youngest Kingsguard since the order was founded, a knight at fifteen and doubtlessly gifted, would fare against a Dothraki warrior. She suspected that in a real battle, he would not last as long as he imagined.

Combine the two forces, forty thousand Dothraki and thirty thousand Dornishmen… she highly doubted the Seven Kingdoms would be able to resist them – especially if the young and unquestionably Targaryen princess Daenerys led them.

It was perhaps fortunate, then, that the Khal Drogo was dead and his mighty _khalasar_ splintered.

Illyrio made his compliments to the _khal_ in their language, one she did not know. As she truly looked at him, however, she had to shiver. She had expected some measure of cruelty to his gaze, no man who spoke and walked like that would be gentle, but she did not expect the utter _cold_ of it, the fathomless black in those narrow eyes. He glanced at her once, twice, in a manner she did not like – evaluating her, as if she was a mare or some other such animal.

_Like he would consider a broodmare._

This man had come here with Khal Drogo, to watch him wed Daenerys Targaryen. She wondered whether he thought she was there for the same fate, to be given to him.

_No._

Jaime apparently picked on the tension on her shoulders and took a step closer; she flashed him a small smile in return and, against her better judgment, relaxed.

Eventually, however, they went on to the prepared feast, the magister speaking in low voices with the khal and the other people present, Lyanna observing. The Dothraki had forsook the perfumes and silks that, according to Illyrio, they usually wore in the city; what sort of statement was meant by that she did not know (and neither did the magisters, she saw), but it made them wary, even if on the surface they were lively as ever.

In the end, they learned of Khal Drogo’s death, of the _maegi_ who was brought forth to heal him, against Dothraki custom, and how she used blood magic to condemn the khal and his child – so it was said, so it was known, but she had a feeling it was not the whole truth. They spat on the memory of Daenerys. Her named sounded strange in their tongue, but recognizable.

The child was dead, too, a monster dead from the womb. They named it an abomination. An abomination born from the finest Targaryen stock left. Viserys was dead as well and _this_ roused her interest: she had concerned herself with the princess, because very few cared for the fate of women in general and exiled princesses of near-extinct lineages in special, but now the prince was dead…

 _She has lost her support,_ Lyanna thought. _She is alone now, or as good as._

The feast went on for a good while; when they returned to Illyrio’s manse, she was lost in thought.

The next day she sent a raven to Westeros. It would fly south down the Narrow Sea and hopefully join the one she had sent the day they left for White Harbor. In the time since she left to Pentos, she had no news of Westeros; just as well. Perhaps this message would reach them and bring with it some sort of reply.

It did. They needed not wait long.

The message had a single word, in a hand she knew well. It said _Qarth._

A week later she, Jaime and a man by the name Belwas (known as Strong Belwas), as well as the Lysene boy, boarded the ship provided by Illyrio, one of three, headed to their newfound destination.


	22. Wolves, lions and dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet a khaleesi.

And the day they met Daenerys Targaryen, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons, in the Qartheen docks; that day made her think again, _Rhaegar believed in fate_.

For surely it was fate that brought them there at that very moment, just in time for them to see – register – what happened, to have Jaime’s sword slice the thing in two before he even realized what it was: manticore.

There was a moment suspended in time.

Daenerys – and she knew it was Daenerys, how could she not? – stood breathless, surprised, and her eyes were so beautiful, such rich purple, Rhaegar’s eyes. Her bloodriders had scattered in the confusion, chasing the man who gave her the box among the stalls and merchants, Belwas was with their ship; the three of them were alone.

Then a hiss, half a shout, _kingslayer_ , and the singing of swords clashing and only then did she realize Daenerys was not alone, that there was a knight with her, that they were _four_. She’d been blinded by the suddenness of everything, by her shock in seeing the last ( _no, not the last, not at all_ ) Targaryen in the flesh, this girl they named Mother of Dragons. Blinded enough she did not see Jorah Mormont, the bear from the north, deserted for slaving because he did not want to face his crimes and be banished to the Wall. Just like him.

It never occurred to her that Daenerys would have a Westerosi knight with her, that that knight would know Jaime on sight. Illyrio had neglected to tell her _that_ little factoid, damn him to the seven hells. She should have known, because Jaime was famous as much as he was infamous: he was the youngest Kingsguard, the Kingslayer, a Lannister and a tourney champion – and anyone in their right mind would think him a threat to the last Targaryen princess.

She certainly would have never thought she’d end like this, a hand fisted in her golden knight’s hair and her dagger, the small dagger he’d bought for her in Pentos and that she wore like a knight would a maiden’s favor tied on her arm; that dagger’s sharp edge, she’d put it against his jugular without even a moment’s hesitation.

“Jaime,” she whispered against his ear, so close, gods, what was she doing, that she could almost feel his pulse and the sudden, panicked indrawn breath he took, the scent of sweat and dust and sea from their journey. “Jaime, let go.”

The way she could feel him pant like a cornered animal against her chest – she’d never have been able to take him down like this if he wasn’t occupied, wasn’t so focused on Mormont.

He’d never even considered her a threat. Not like this. The way he looked at her then, the betrayal she could feel even if she could not see it, not really, standing behind him like she was, was as painful as if he’d physically wounded her.

A bead of blood escaped Jorah Mormont’s neck. It slid down, red and fat, with a faint plop as it hit the ground.

The princess had recovered, she noticed, but did not dare scream or any such thing: not when Jaime had his sword to her companion’s neck, not when she had her dagger to Jaime’s neck.

Achingly slow, so slow, he drew his sword back from Mormont’s neck. She felt the ripple of his shoulders as he did, even with the mail, she was so close, but she would not dare let go until Mormont was out of danger. She had never noticed, but they were almost of a height – she had to stretch a little to hold him in such a position and of course she did not have the raw strength to subdue him, not if she truly had to.

“Who are you?” her princess asked, this princess who wished to be a queen though she was scarce five and ten, if as much, and had no kingdom to speak of.

It was Mormont who answered.

“ _Khaleesi,_ this is Jaime Lannister, the kingslayer, the one who killed your father when he vowed to protect him, the heir to the traitors who butchered your brother’s children and his wife,” he said, a little breathless, but there was such venom in his voice – she could see how it went home, how it pierced the girl’s heart as sure as an arrow and at that moment she knew she did the right thing, betrayal or not.

Had Jaime wounded him, they would be lost. They’d be dead, the both of them, because Daenerys would never forgive them, never, because she trusted Mormont, trusted the stories he told, and if he died there…

“Actually I gave that up my inheritance by joining the Kingsguard,” said her beautiful, utter, utter _fool_ of a Lannister lion, and she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to kiss or hit him for being arrogant like that even with a dagger to his throat and surrounded by likely enemies. It was her usual reaction to him, however, so she let it go.

_Then we would be good as dead, with her khalasar certainly not far._

“And that one –” and she would have laughed and in fact she did, and the faint tremble in her hand – she still had not let go, not from his throat, not from his hair, not in so long as he did not let go of his sword – made the skin of his neck break, scratch, but not bleed. “That one is the She-Wolf, the one that started everything, the reason of your father’s downfall –”

“I prefer to go by my own name, ser,” she said simply, looking past him and to the silent princess and gods, she saw then that the rumors were true, that she did have such unearthly, Targaryen beauty. “Though you flatter me, putting the fates of so many men in my hands, I am only Lyanna Stark, princess. I must say you look a lot like your brother. We come in peace, to offer you aid.”

 _“You,”_ said her princess, the princess for whom she’d forsaken her dream of returning home, of spending her days in the quiet and the silence of Winterfell. The girl’s voice betrayed nothing; it sent a frisson up Lyanna’s spine, though she did not know why. “You married the Usurper, seduced my brother, you –”

“I was four and ten when Rhaegar wedded me beneath the heart tree of Winterfell, of his own free will,” she cut, because she was tired, so tired, and she could feel Jaime tense against her; she did not question why he had not fought her off, yet, why he let her do this, not when the memories came and flooded and burst from her lips like that. “If anyone was seduced, it was I.”

“You married the Usurper, _stole_ _my_ _kingdom_ –”

 _“You have no kingdom,”_ she spat and immediately regretted it; it was the truth, however. She had no kingdom, no more than Lyanna did, not anymore. “I was six and ten when your brother died on the Trident, defending your heritage and his. He left me in Dorne, guarded by three Kingsguard who died in my defense, though it was for naught as my brother Eddard Stark came to rescue me. I had no more choice than you, _your grace_ , on who to marry.”

And she should be quiet, should let go, should make amends; but _how dare_ this man, this _slaver_ , and this utter _child_ of a princess, judge her so, after everything?

Lyanna was never known for being considerate, for being gentle. She was ice, yes, but even ice had its rage and the rage moved in her with all the strength of an avalanche.

She was silent, however, this Daenerys. Lyanna thought she was not in the habit of being contradicted. Princes and princesses never were, grown with their titles under their skin, never having to deal with the cold, harsh world as it was. Lyanna had been like that once, long ago.

“And what of him, what is the murderer’s excuse? _Do you deny what he has done?_ ” she said and the fury in her eyes was almost as familiar as her silver hair. She had seen this fury once, in someone else’s face. She had not been afraid then, when she was as young as this girl. She was certainly not impressed now. It took more than a whelp to frighten her, far more.

She could feel Jaime tighten, tense against her, and she willed him to be quiet.

“No,” she said instead and willed herself to be calm, to be gentler. “I do not deny his crimes, which are many and varied, but what do you know of your father, my lady? Did you know, perchance, that he butchered his smallfolk and lords alike, whenever he was displeased? That he raped your lady mother and tortured her, whenever he was fortunate to burn someone?”

She could see the doubt, then, in the young princess’s eyes; she guessed she knew little about her father, if anything at all.

She had let go of Jaime during her tirade, she realized, her attention entirely on Daenerys (and yet she could hear the beat of hooves, her bloodriders returning). He, in turn, had moved his sword away, though not enough for her comfort and not enough to give Mormont a chance to react. A silence she had no name for stretched around them, brief, but tense.

Then he spoke, her golden lion, so soft she might as well have misheard him, but she knew she had not.

“He was going to burn King’s Landing,” he said, sounding distant, even pensive; there was a string of red where she held her dagger to him.

“When my father’s forces grew near, when we heard of Rhaegar’s defeat, he was going to set fire to King’s Landing. There were five hundred thousand people living there, give or take, plus all of us in the Red Keep, and he was going to burn us all, burn the city to the ground so Robert would have nothing to rule. _I will give them naught but ashes,_ she said.”

It stopped her cold, whatever she was going to say dying in her throat. _He was going to burn it to the ground. King’s Landing, five hundred thousand people, he was going to burn it to the ground._

“Why, Jaime?” she asked, just as soft, Daenerys and the rest quite forgotten. _Gods_ , she knew the man was mad, but to burn that many people, his own smallfolk, his own guards, _himself_ , like that, took such madness… and yet she did not doubt him, not once. Aerys had slayed her father, cooked him in his own armor, for the crime of loving her; why then would he not murder his own subjects? “Why not tell the world this?”

He ignored her, however. This time it was Daenerys he watched, she knew, with that same intensity he once gave her, across from her during their dancing lessons, on that night in the godswood – she could see, even as she felt it once, that Daenerys, for all her hatred, was affected by that look; whether it was a good thing or not, she could not way.

She also knew that just as she was aware of the approach of her bloodriders, so was he alert to any sudden moves Mormont might do against him.

He would not, however. He seemed as quiet and distant as the rest of the docks.

“I swore a vow once,” he said, quiet. “To protect the innocent. Finish me now, if you will, but I will never regret what I have done,” he said.

_Words I once told him. We have regrets, do we not, my Lion of Lannister? So many, yet not the ones they would wish us to regret._

It was her turn, however, her turn to speak, to move in for the kill.

“Your kingdom is divided,” she said, gentle. “Robert is dead without a heir and his brothers fight over it. You have supporters in Westeros, my princess, supporters who will rise in your favor. Dorne is yours, they have no love for Baratheons, and with us by your side you have a way to the Westerlands, the richest domain in the Seven Kingdoms!”

“And the North?” that was Mormont; she smiled and knew it was not a nice smile.

“I cannot promise my brother’s support, he is ever so honorable, but something can be worked. That is what we are here for, to _help_ ,” she paused, breathed, thought, and hoped. “We come with ships, three ships heavy with merchandise, courtesy of Illyrio Mopatis, who has hosted and supported us in our quest to find you. They are yours to claim. I see you were about to leave Qarth, why else would you be here? Do you accept us, Daenerys Targaryen?”

She breathed.

She waited.


	23. The red woman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet a woman in red.

The first flakes of snow had started to fall, and the red woman rode north.

They named her the red woman because, well, she was. Red of hair, red of cloth and red of eye – and, though they did not know this, red of soul. But then, very few knew her at all.

(Those who did never lasted long, by the grace of R’hllor.)

The horse she rode too was red, a gift from her lord king. A fine horse, a courser, hardy and strong as any warhorse was meant to be, but she cared little for the finery of her mount. How could she, when the land spread before her, charred and torn?

Stannis, the fool, had rejected her, rejected her advice, did not listen to her, and that would seal his doom. There was little left for her to do but ride north.

The road she followed was black; in war, it seemed, even the chivalrous were cruel. She passed through blackened villages, the ruins of which still smoked; she offered a prayer to R’hllor in each of them, for the souls lost and found. They would rest in the arms of R’hllor, those innocents, cleansed further by the fire, but still it struck her human heart, that they would suffer for the game of thrones when it could be over so quickly. Here and there she found the corpses, women and children and old men. The strong young ones would have been butchered first, this she knew.

Why did Stannis not listen to her? Maybe then he was not who she thought he was.

Oh, if only he had heard her, but his heart was cold as stone, and he did not; Renly lived; they wore each other out in battles they need not fight. He built an armada; this she knew, but the true battle was elsewhere entirely. These charred villages, these tortured peasants; she knew they were the work of roses and storm lords alike. In war, every man is the same – bestial and ruthless. She knew this well, oh, she knew.

They had heard, however, that there was a new Lord Commander in the Wall. Maybe then he would listen; maybe he would know, but without an army, what was he to do? And Renly would not listen to her, either. Renly’s heart was set elsewhere, set in a sin she could not break, not from him, and what was she to do?

Maybe then the lord in the north would listen; thus she rode, on and on. She was not afraid of the raiding parties; she knew too well they posed no threat, not to her. By the grace of R’hllor she would survive; there was more to be done, so much more, than they understood.

Could they not see where the danger lied? Did they not know?

Oh, but she knew, and she saw, and she need not rest or sleep until she found them. The Lord of Winterfell would be closer; he was parlaying with the Riverlords, she knew. Renly had taken to harassing the Crownlands, wearing out the people, distressing them, not much, but enough, as he marched on to King’s Landing. He attempted the same with the North, this she knew, but less; he was wary of Ned Stark’s forces, as well he should be.

The northern lords cared very little for southern wars, however. She knew there would be dissent in their midst, though they would follow their Lord Stark dutifully enough.

Stannis was preparing to sail to the Reach, to destabilize and draw back the forces of Highgarden; they would be forced to go back and protect their lands. Meanwhile, the northern host would drive against the Stormlands, forcing the same of Renly and his lords.

And on top of that, the Ironborn had declared their independence as well. They had contented themselves with piracy and harassing the port towns, at least that was what Stannis thought. The red woman cared little; and yet, she was not as sure of that as Stannis was.

They stood not a chance, and as the Starks were so fond of saying, winter was coming – and yet they heeded not their own words, their own warning. Neither force seemed to see that for what it was, neither force knew there were worst things coming than winter. They had forgotten but she, ah, she knew. She had seen it, had she not, when the red star slashed the sky, she had seen.

She was not sure what it meant, though, that pale face in the fire. She knew who he was supposed to be, and she had thought at first he was Stannis, for surely he could not be his unnatural brother, and the other one was dead. Yet it was not so, she had failed, and what was she to do now?

Ride north, further, and round back to the Stormlands. Find Eddard Stark, convince her of the truth of R’hllor, or, if not that, of the real danger beyond the Wall. Ride north, to the Wall.

That night, as she rested her horse and made a fire, caught a hare and prepared her meager fare, she stared into the flames, as was her habit, humming under her breath as the heat rose and rose and sank into her cold flesh, set her veins afire.

 _“My Lord, my Lord,”_ she chanted under breath as the light grew higher and higher, and she saw – the images flew before her eyes, too many, as the trance grew deeper, and she was not sure, how could she be sure? _“My Lord, show me, show me the way,”_ and so did her Lord show, the images flying, clear and crisp and real in a manner they had never been before, not really, but she did not see, she did not understand…

She blinked against the sunlight filtering through the trees, whatever was left of them. The woods were silent, too silent, unnaturally so. Somewhere she heard a crow call out, a lonely cry of _caw, caw,_ so sharp and startling that she shuddered at the sound. The fire had died away; she could not remember putting it out, but then, she would not have. The ashes were already slipping, even though there was no wind, breaking into themselves into powder and into nothing like so many snowflakes. It had started to snow again – soft, the sort of snowfall that turned to slush.

The red woman rose, fixed the crimson dress about her; mounted her horse, and rode north.


	24. The dragons in the Balerion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lyanna meets a dragon by name of Rhaegal.

The eyes watched her out of the darkness, unlike anything she had ever seen. They shone like liquid bronze in the gloom of the ship’s bowels where they were confined for the moment. It took her awhile to realize that it was not the torches on the sconces that reflected that light and heat, it was something else altogether.

The heat was intense around the dragons. She could almost feel her skin blister, crack open under that heat, drowning her like the heat of Dorne. An illusion, of course; she was perfectly safe, or so she thought, but she had not expected their presence to heat the very air around them like that.

“They are real, then,” she said rather stupidly. Of course they were real, she could see them, feel the heat of their skin, feel the sheer, raw _power_ they gave, much as the heat, the power that made the fine hairs on her arms stand and a spike of fear and awe run down her spine, for the dragons, they changed everything by merely existing in it, twisted reality around them, changed the rules of the world for as long as they breathed – and they did by deep lungful, with a gleam of live fire on their scales.

They were small and young still. They would not be for long. She’d seen the skulls that lined the throne room of the Red Keep. She was there when Robert sent them down into storage to put his own hunting tapestries on the walls, his own mark on the kingdom he had usurped for her.

 _The dragon has three heads._ Was it not convenient, then, that had hatched three of them? _Three heads has the dragon, for Visenya, Rhaenys and Aegon, but who will ride the other two?_

“This is Drogon,” said the princess. The black shape flew to her, nipping gently at her ear, cuddling in her shoulder like a friendly bird; it was little larger than some of the eagles that the Tyrells bred for hunting. It was clear that from the three Drogon had bonded with her the most: she wondered whether it was because of his name, but that would mean she loved her husband, which, Lyanna supposed, was not so hard to believe. The Dothraki seemed devoted to her, and _were_ , if they were willing to brave the Narrow Sea for her sake. They were brave, the bravest, but they were too few…

“The cream and gold one is Viserion,” the princess went on, but it wasn’t the cream dragon that she was looking at: it was the green one, the one with the bronze eyes. The one that watched her every movement with such a familiar gaze in those alien eyes she could scarcely breathe.

It flew. It landed on her shoulder with a thump and a cry that made her ears ring and that was when she knew the feel of wings stretched out, the rip of leather through the sky, the black furnace inside of her that made her want to spit and made her breathe, knew what it was like to be born and to _exist_ in this vast, endless world of theirs, the hard scales, the cruel claws, the inhuman beat of her heart, like a drum calling for battle –

She saw but for a moment the image of her brothers, the green and the black and the _khaleesi_ that was her mother, _their_ mother, curled with Drogon and dreaming and she knew without a doubt that hers was elsewhere because she could feel the flesh under her claws and it was not this, not like Drogon was Dany’s, but it was close, closer than Doreah and Jorah and Irri and Jhiqui, closer than any of them, but it was not _hers_.

It was a second, little less than a second, but she _saw_ , and the contact broke and she was adrift, blinking against a light that seemed so much brighter than it was, sounds that seemed too loud and the scents that felt too strong.

“Rhaegal likes you,” she heard Daenerys say, far away because the bronze eyes were still on hers. It had curled its neck around hers, peering at her from the corner of an eye. “He has never behaved like this before. Interesting.”

 _It’s not me that he wants,_ Lyanna thought, but her fingers went up of their own volition, to run over the dragon’s skin. It was smooth like leather but hard like stone and she knew that nothing would ever pierce that skin. She doubted even her star-metal sword could cut through that, or any Valyrian blade.

The dragon breathed, and the smoke curled around her fingers. It felt too hot, too warm, rather, and brought to memory the idea of the Dornish sun and bittersweet memories that made her heart clench.

Daenerys insisted on presenting them to the dragons before they parted, though she was content enough to take the ships Magister Illyrio sent her and them, at the very least, as prisoners. Jaime had gone first, being the one under greater suspicion; he’d returned shaken but not frightened. Rather, he was thoughtful. He’d japed that Tyrion would kill to be where he was; Tyrion was a great lover of dragons. Whenever he visited the Red Keep he’d spend hours with the skulls, looking at them, running his small fingers over the sharp teeth, dreaming of flight and freedom and strength. He probably knew more of dragon-lore than the _khaleesi_ herself did, Mother of Dragons or not.

“The dragon has three heads,” she said absentmindedly. The dragon nosed against her skin, hot and comfortable, much as Drogon did with their mother, and she felt her skin burn, but not too much. Viserion looked forlorn; unbidden the image of a young boy in a field of blue roses came to mind, a boy who just wanted to go home, a boy who had no one, not even a Dothraki _khal_ , to speak for him. “You will need a third. One for Viserion.”

“Two,” the _khaleesi_ corrected with a wrinkle between her eyes. “No,” Lyanna said and laughed when Rhaegal nipped at her fingers, playful, and she _understood_ , or thought she did. She doubted anyone ever _could_ understand what it meant, the great flex of wings, the heat inside. “I know who will ride this one. No,” she gestured for silence, before Daenerys could protest, “no, it is not I who will ride him. He likes me because he can feel his rider through me. I do not understand, not quite, how the bonding works, I doubt anyone can, but he senses it nonetheless. You were rather fortunate in naming him. Makes one wonder about fate all over again.”

_Three heads has the dragon, but who is the third?_

“And who is it? _Who is it?_ There are no Targaryens left, only me!”

Oh, but she was so young and she knew so little, this _khaleesi_ , with all her bravado and her presumed power, she knew nothing.

(Somewhere else altogether, beyond the Wall and into the heart of winter, a redheaded girl said something similar to a solemn, gray eyed boy.)

“I cannot tell you,” she said instead, on the swaying bowels of the _Balerion_ , the flagship of Daenerys’s conquest. “Not now. Please, do not ask this of me, _khaleesi._ When the time is right, I will tell you, but now is not the time.”

_Why?_

She had no answer to that, but she knew, deep in her bones, as she knew the heat, knew what it was like to be stone for centuries, to move through the air like an arrow, to sink into the sea and feel the bones crunch between her teeth. This was not the time. She was not sure there would ever _be_ a time when she could tell someone – someone who was not Ned – the truth.

“I am sick of riddles,” the young girl said through clenched teeth; and the part of Lyanna who was a mother and a woman understood that and wanted to hold her, as she’d once held Rhaegar against her chest the night before they parted. He’d cried against her naked skin, bitter tears, like she’d never seen a man cry, the way children cried, heartfelt and raw.

“So am I, _khaleesi_ ,” said Lyanna, in the quiet. The dragons flew back to their perches, in unison, cradling their forgotten brother between them. She suspected Viserion would experience several riders before he found his true one and her heart broke for him the same as it had for his human namesake. None of them were meant to be happy, but something told her that Viserion, like Viserys, would suffer more than most. “This is no riddle, though. This is the truth and the truth will out in time. Will you trust me, then?”

She thought for a long moment, her _khaleesi_ (and funny, how the more they talked, the more time they spent together, the more she was a _khaleesi_ and not a princess, a woman and not a girl; she was not there yet, not quite, but she suspected she would, sometime).

The answer came, however, in a soft _yes_ ; and Lyanna breathed anew.


	25. Ghosts in the sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lyanna and Daenerys have a chat.

“What was my brother like?”

Lyanna had to consider how to answer. They were alone in Daenerys’s cabin, the handmaids sent off to do some inconsequential task; that was Lyanna’s first clue that there was something in the young princess’s mind, as she avoided being alone with Lyanna as much as possible. They had settled on an uneasy alliance; it was clear the princess trusted them not at all, but had very little choice other than accept them. It was no matter; Lyanna was used to being distrusted. It was better than outright hate, like she could sense between Mormont and Jaime. Why, she had no idea; as far as she knew, Jaime had done nothing to the elder knight, but then, whoever knew how men’s minds worked?

Daenerys, however, was someone else altogether. She did not hate, that much was clear, and whenever she spied Jaime she had such a look in her eyes, as if she was thoughtful, as if she was measuring him. It was not interest, not quite, but it was almost as if he brought memories to her, memories that made her pensive and distant. What sort of memories Lyanna could not possibly know; they had never met before. But she was happy enough that the princess had not demanded his head, and would take as much as she could.

Yet now she did not look like a princess, or a _khaleesi_ , as she styled herself. They headed to Pentos, were on sea for almost two days already, and it did not surprise her that the girl would ask her about her brother. She’d done the same the moment she met Ned again, asked after Benjen and how Brandon was after her departure, asked Catelyn about what she thought of her elder brother, did she miss him?

She would not begrudge Daenerys the truth and, try as she might, whatever her flaws, she would not deny she missed female company. This young girl, so far from her people and so alone, this girl who looked so much like her lover, she made Lyanna want to be her friend, a sister of sorts, even, as young Lyanna once thought they would have been.

So she told her the truth.

“Rhaegar Targaryen was a strange man,” she said, and bade Daenerys sit, taking a hairbrush and settling behind her on her narrow bed, unbraiding the silver strands slowly and deliberately. “He was a noble man, a fair man, even a righteous man, as some would have said. He was charming and he was kind, and he was so sad it was like he had a great wellspring of sorrow inside him. That was what broke men and women both, made them love him. Even the smallfolk loved him, hailed him as a hero, though he had not yet done anything heroic in his life. There was something about him, something that was not quite… it was like he was not one of us, _khaleesi._ ”

The girl shifted; she turned her large purple eyes on Lyanna over her shoulder. The older woman could not help but smile: this girl was the age of her Jon, but so unlike him.

“How so?”

“He was very studious,” she told her quietly. “That in itself is not strange. He loved his books and his music more than any other amusement and he seemed so above the mortal passions that it was almost – unnatural. He was not pious like Baelor the Blessed, far from it; but he was cultured and literate well beyond any man other than a maester. He excelled in everything he did, be it philosophy, music, warfare,” _lovemaking,_ she did not say, but she thought it, and it made her smile. He was: he was as focused and intense in bed as in everything else, but even she knew he did not derive the same rapture that she did in his arms.

Everything with Rhaegar was a means to an end. It took her years, but she knew it now.

“He was not without flaw. He had a temper, as much as any Targaryen ever had,” her fingers tugged on the silver hair, not unkindly. “You never wanted to cross him, _khaleesi_. That was the only time Rhaegar was truly dangerous. When he was in a rage, the thing to do was submit.” _Wake the dragon,_ Daenerys mouthed, and Lyanna nodded.

_(“I have to go, I have to, my father, my brother, they are **dead** –”_

_“Lyanna.”_

_It was only one word, hissed so softly it might well be the wind, and she was not craven; but for the first time in her life, Lyanna feared him. He had done nothing to threaten her, nothing but stare at her, but his eyes were so cold and distant she’d felt – he did not move, but something had changed in him, some subtle shift. She saw him for what he was: a Targaryen._

_She’d silenced. The moment shivered and broke._

_She submitted ever so prettily, did she not?)_

“He was obstinate. Whenever he found something he wanted he would pursue it to the exclusion of all else. He would go to Summerhall and sing his heart out for days at a time, whenever the mood struck, regardless of whatever obligations or duties he had. He had the most beautiful voice.”

And, _gods_ , how she missed that voice! She heard it in her dreams, he’d be by the window under the Dornish sun, talking to her about anything and she would just lie there and listen to him talk.

“They say that the gods flip a coin whenever a Targaryen is born,” she mused aloud. Unconsciously, her fingers untangled the silver locks; the girl leaned against her, a child listening to a story. Lyanna was not entirely sure she’d even noticed it. “One side for greatness, one side for madness. I believe in his case the coin fell on its edge. He was neither great nor mad: he was both.”

The girl tensed at that; she thought she knew why. _Where has your coin fallen, my princess?_

“Both?”

“Yes.” How to explain this to his only ( _legitimate_ ) surviving kin? “Had he lived, I have no doubt he would be a good king and do great things. He had a mind to restore what your father did, to make amends. He was popular; nobles and smallfolk alike loved him. But Rhaegar believed in fate, believed it and lived in accordance to it,” she tried, raking through her hair and separating the strands to braid it again. She thought of Rhaegar, silver-haired, solemn and sad, his cheek on her chest as her fingers slipped through his hair over and over.

“He had no wish to be king, however. He told me as much. It was his duty and he would do it well, but it was not his dream and it was not his ambition and Rhaegar, he was all for dreams and ambitions. He believed it was his fate to be, I don’t know, some sort of savior,” _there is a great evil coming, Lyanna, and it befalls to me to save us,_ he told her once. That was the first time she remembered thinking him mad. She’d forgotten it, during her stay in the Tower of Joy, so much had happened then, but once he was dead…

“There was a prophecy, something he did not explain but told me about, often enough,” _he had to, otherwise how would I have complied, after my brother and father were dead? Yet he did not know me, not really, if he thought I would believe that as he did._

“It was a prophecy about a prince, a prince who was promised. It was said he would come from Rhaella and Aerys, and for a time Rhaegar believed it was him – but then, for some reason he changed his mind about it. He told me the prophecy said _his is the song of ice and fire_. He assumed it was Aegon then who was the prince, but the dragon has three heads. Rhaenys was one; he needed another. One that was ice to Rhaenys’s fire.”

_And Aegon is dead, and Rhaenys, same as you, my love._

“The stallion who mounts the world,” the princess mumbled, and Lyanna wondered about that, but did not question; the tension on her shoulders hadn’t lifted.

“That was his obsession, his passion, his reason to live. That thought consumed him, ate at him. It killed him, in the end.”

That was why he seduced her. Not because he loved her, or lusted for her, but because _his was the song of ice and fire_ , and she was convenient, the spirited girl from the north. Oh, he was fond of her, she knew that, and maybe she was the closest he came to loving anyone in his life. Robert told her once, when he was too deep in his wine to curb himself, that her silver prince’s last word was _Lyanna_. He told her that and he cried, because he still lied to himself and told himself that Lyanna was raped, and he apologized ever so tearfully for not saving her quickly enough. She’d gone warm inside, almost unbearably so, almost drowned in the love of these two, desperate, such different men.

(More often than not, those days, that one in particular, she wondered why _her_. She was not beautiful, not in the traditional sense of the word. She was not interesting; she was not smart or accomplished; and yet…

But she knew why.

A prophecy.

The one who got away.

That was her worth.)

In the cold light of day, Robert would never speak to her of Rhaegar; he was a ghost, just one of many, there between them. It was only when he was drunk and half-mad in love with her (the one who got away, the one who always got away, the one he could bed but did not _have_ , not the way he wanted, not even when she cried ever so obediently beneath him) that he’d do things like that, reassure her that the dragon bastard was dead, that she was safe.

Rhaegar was an easy man to love, but he did not easily love, and his heart and soul were given to his madness, his prophecy, not to any mortal woman or man.

“He gave me a crown of blue winter roses and I gave him myself. Not a just bargain, don’t you think?”

At some point Daenerys had relaxed and when Lyanna came to out of her memories it was to see that same look – the look she kept around Jaime, thoughtful – directed at her. _Odd._

She almost expected her to ask it. Braced for what she had to say, if she asked, because she would not lie to Rhaegar’s sister, no more than she would lie to him.

She did not ask it, because at that moment Ser Jorah decided to interrupt them, claiming pressing matters to be discussed, and Lyanna found her excuse to leave the conversation behind. She still felt Daenerys’s eyes on her, assessing, thoughtful, and thought, _the dragon has three heads. Who is the third?_

Daenerys who was alone, Daenerys who had her dragons, the three of them. _Dragons,_ real, actual dragons, three of them – and wasn’t that convenient, that she would have _three?_

Maybe Rhaegar was right; maybe there was some sort of fate at work here, some sort of prophecy.

But walking on deck again, with the wind on her face and the sharp, loud cries of the dragons in the air, she was not entirely sure that fate would be a good thing. There was something strange there, some sort of pattern she could not quite figure out. Some pattern that, perhaps, Rhaegar had seen – or would have, were he alive.

Then again _were_ he alive, would she be here?

 _He never planned on surviving._ He’d delayed joining the war long enough to get her with child, then left to die. To leave her with a child in her belly half the world would call a bastard and no future to speak of. Dishonored.

And of course it was Rhaegal ( _it rhymes with regal_ ) who found her, landed on her shoulder; maybe he sensed her distress, her disgust, her thoughts – she was not sure what. Somewhere to her left a Dothraki, little more than a boy, was violently sick. Her Lysene boy, her little not-son, helped him, a hand to his forehead and another on his braid, pale and dark skin close together, silver-gold and rich, oily black, so different and so alike in turn. The Lysene knew the sea; he’d been trafficked to Pentos as little more than a toddler, too young to remember, but some part of his body found comfort in the sway of the sea, the same comfort the Dothraki found in the rhythm of a horse’s gait.

She thought of Jon, the son she was never to raise, but never stopped loving.

Thought of the children she did not have, did not want to have.

Rhaegal’s blunt nose brushed her neck; she swept a hand over his back. It felt warm, too warm, almost to the point of discomfort, but it was discomfort that she wanted, anyway.

“And what are we going to do, my dear, to bring you to your mate?”

What an odd word, _mate_ , but that was what they were, was it not? Mates.

_Wage war against the Seven Kingdoms, of course. Put your sister in the Iron Throne. Legitimize my son. Die, maybe. It would be a relief._

At least they had a plan.

The dragon took flight again, reassured. She saw from the corner of her eye, Ser Jorah striding off in a temper, the handmaids hurrying back to the cabin – part of her wondered what happened, thought of the possible ramifications of their actions, the next steps in their dance, but the wounds were raw, reopened, too fresh, and she let the sway of the sea lull her, watching the golden water foaming and breaking on their ship’s prow, the shadow of the other two ships in their wake, smooth and fast as dolphins cleaving the sea.

It was not just the Red Keep that was full of ghosts.


	26. An interlude at the Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which things happen and the author fails.

Things shifted. Winter came – not at once, not quite, but slow enough that when the first snows fell south of the Neck, it was so gentle they almost did not notice.

The day broke gray and dismal. The red woman was locked in her room watching the fire. It was not unusual for her to do so; she had her visions and her plans, and besides it was always warm in her room, the shadows tinted gold from the fire that burned ever hot in her hearth. Presumably, she was to find Lord Stark’s ward. The boy left in the middle of the night to escape justice.

Turned out Lord Balon Greyjoy had less care for Theon’s life than Lord Stark’s own son did.

They were on the Twins, where Eddard was seeking the support of Walder Frey once again; the keep was small enough that most men camped outside, as did the red woman, but she’d found some minuscule cubicle for her prayers and taken it before the lord of the keep even noticed. His forces were already spread thin, hesitant as they were to follow their liege lord for a war that was not theirs and that they cared little for, with winter close to their doors, and the discontent was heavy.

It did not help that Lord Stark’s own son betrayed him in such a manner.

The flip side of raising a hostage as a son is that your trueborn children tend to consider him a brother.

The Ironborn had invaded Moat Caitlin, as well, and were spreading along the coast, reaving and raping and pillaging as was their wont.

Southward, Lord Stannis had seized Storm’s End, his birthright; it did little to conquer or stop the bannermen from joining Lord Renly’s cause (though they were certainly divided now) and they fought a war of attrition on all sides, with the Reach splitting between marching on the Stormlands to free their allies and looping back to their own lands to defend from the northern forces.

It was as Stannis predicted, a bloodbath, and it did not help that the reach had cut the supply chain to King’s Landing, sending the near five hundred thousand people there into starvation.

And she was nowhere closer to her aims than before.

Oh, Lord Eddard had certainly accepted her well enough; he was a generous man, exceedingly dutiful and honorable and he would not let a woman die or starve, even a foreign woman, even a follower of R’hllor. He was a good man, Lord Eddard was.

She was not surprised at all when the screams outside alerted her that something was wrong. She looked into the flames, seeking a sign of their savior, of Azor Ahai, of their future; she stared into it as the door, which she had not barred, was slammed open so hard it bounced on the hinges.

The flames told her nothing, and she worried.

She was not worried when the guards – Frey men, she saw – hauled her bodily outside the room. She did not fight them as they led her – and, apparently, every servant, every woman, every child – into what passed for Great Hall in the Twins.

The din was fantastic, the clashing of swords, the raised voices. The red woman made herself small, made herself invisible in the crowd: they were questioning the people in the hall, servants, women, even the children, watched from all sides by men and women who knew far too well how to hate. The jewel at her throat pulsed gently, like a second heart, and her hand went to it on instinct. They’d put this around her neck in Asshai, in the great temple there. One night she’d fallen asleep and the next morning she woke to the heat on her skin, the jewel red as blood.

She’d never taken it off.

And just as they’d remembered her enough to drive her there, they forgot her; the questioning was folly, the questioning was pointless, the men accused each other in loud words, solved their issues with steel. It would have descended into all-out chaos, was it not for the older boy – the one who’d been dragged from the cells where he’d been kept – yelled out “My lords! Your liege lord is dead and you argue like children!”

_Ah._

So that was the reason, the eye of the storm.

There was a speech of some sort, as men often do when they find themselves suddenly heirs to their fathers. The red woman knew nothing of that; she knew, however, in the hearts of men, there was a devotion to Starks in general, even young wolves like this one, especially this one with the direwolf to his side. His father had had no direwolf to protect him; when they arrested young Robb for freeing Greyjoy, the wolf had vanished into the night. It was there now, by his side, great, dark and solemn – Grey Wind, they named him.

How interesting.

The red woman did not smile; she had lost her protector and must look somber. Part of her  _was_  somber; Lord Eddard was a kind man, a noble man. Maybe, in some other world…

_He was not the one you seek._

That she knew the moment she saw him.

It did not mean she did not like him, though.

As a priestess of R’hllor she was Melisandre; but she was not all Melisandre.

She eyed the boy who styled himself the new Lord Stark. Young, near five and ten, perhaps less. Alone, here, in the midst of men that did not trust each other or their new liege lord – that much was clear. He’d failed them once, though she would guess none of them cared for the justice spent on Theon Greyjoy; they would see the boy for a boy.

The red woman saw him for what he was.

It was only too bad. He looked such a nice boy, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one really sucks at the whole "war" thing.


	27. Armies and slaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our characters disagree. Again.

_This is folly,_ she thought as she watched them fight.

Not with swords, as Daenerys would never have abided that. Not even with words. Lyanna had seen plenty of men fight in her life; it was not what was done that was important, but what was _not_ done, the unspoken language between two rivals, the silent communications in eyes, body language, movement. It was the way Jaime’s right hand would never stray far from his sword’s hilt and neither would Mormont’s. The exchanged looks, sizing each other up, measuring each other up, all the time they were in the same place.

Jorah Mormont had no love for Jaime Lannister.

Jaime Lannister had no love for anyone not of his blood and he had even less respect. He was proud as his House’s sigil and resented being disliked and disdained for no reason even as he embraced the dislike and the disdain as readily as he embraced the praise and the glories bestowed upon him by birth. Watching him and Mormont dance around each other, snapping and snarling but never attacking, like wary dogs, she surmised her golden knight was more like his brother than he thought.

And Jaime was wary of her, too, though it was far less clear than his dislike of Mormont. He was betrayed; he’d taught her to fight, trained her those lazy days in Pentos, and for what? For her to put a dagger to his neck and use his teachings against him.

He was clever, her Jaime, far cleverer than many thought, cleverer than even he himself knew, but he was brash, too, even reckless, and prone to provoking his opponents to the brink so they would lash.

So reviled by Mormont and wary of her he’d spiraled closer to Daenerys – and she, innocent as she was, though not so much as to _trust_ him, heeded his advice and welcomed him, to everyone’s surprise, most of all Jaime’s.

Which only made Mormont angrier and more hateful.

“You cannot hope to conquer Westeros with a slave army,” he said for about the hundredth time. They were the four of them in Daenerys’s cabin, which was spacious but still claustrophobically closed. They had changed courses from Pentos to Astapor. “No lord would trust you; slavery is forbidden under the faith of the Seven, and many lords who would otherwise stay neutral might take arms against such travesty!”

The aggression between the two men was so thick you could’ve cut it with a knife; she felt it wash over her, such aggression that sent a thrill through her skin – battle lust, she thought. Even she, who was no warrior, felt the compulsion to bring her sword to hand.

“You would rather she was a pawn to whatever sand dog offers her an army,” Mormont sneered. “And for what? What could they gain from that?”

But Lyanna knew what he had to gain. Oberyn told her himself. This she had not told Daenerys, in fear she would balk, as she must, as Lyanna herself would have, and forsake her advice.

_They stand to win a king. Marry the princess to one of their own; aid her in her conquest and rule through their pretty puppet of five and ten._

Do to her the same as Viserys did: trade her noble blood for a throne. She had no doubt, from what she heard from the Dothraki handmaidens, that Viserys was mad.

_Conquer a kingdom with the Dothraki and slay their khal when his use of him was done. Marry her himself._

“So you wish her to be a _slaver_ , like you?”

That bolt went home. Lyanna flinched. Daenerys only watched and only heard, but Lyanna could tell from the hardness in her eyes that she was through with this, that her mind was set. Mormont’s hand went to his sword at once.

So for the second time, she betrayed Jaime.

“Mormont is right,” and just like that, she saw the flash in his green eyes and his fury focus on her. Good. Better her than Mormont. The last thing she needed was for him to provoke the _khaleesi_ into putting him in chains once again, if she did not order him dead outright. “The _khaleesi_ will need her _khalasar_. Yes, she will have the support of Dorne and mayhap even the Westerlands, but she should have her own army. And ser, sellswords are not enough. The _khaleesi_ has no riches, that much is true, and she cannot hope to meet the might of the Stormlands and the Reach with turncloaks at her back.”

“And she will have no support, with slaves at her back!”

“She will,” said Lyanna. “She will regardless. You know as well as I do, ser, that the Westerosi lords are easy to forget their honor and their gods when they stand to benefit and, in case it escaped you, she has _dragons_. They will bend the knee for her just as they did to Aegon the Conqueror, but the _khaleesi_ needs must have her loyal soldiers, and what better soldiers than Unsullied?”

Oh, she knew about them – she had learned much in her time at Illyrio Mopatis’s house. What she had learned, much as she had learned on the Dothraki, was enough for her to understand that Westerosi knights were not the be-all, end-all of martial power.

No, they needed Unsullied; they needed a _khalasar_ , otherwise what would she be but a pawn in the hands of Martells? Lyanna knew too much of the world to believe otherwise, and though Daenerys had all the trappings of a fierce little lady that one day might be a fierce little queen, she was no such thing. She was naïve, as naïve as Sansa if not more so, divested of the harsh practicality of the North. She’d lived this long with only Mormont to give her council.

And Mormont was in love with her.

She knew not what transpired between them, whether the feeling was reciprocated (she did not believe so), what sort of experiences went through together, but she knew something of men, and she knew that Mormont was – he would want her to love him and only him, to be by her side and to rule by her side and have her as she had him.

But a ruler must belong to no one but her kingdom; that was Robert’s folly, and hers, too, not that she had any choice on the matter.

She would not allow Daenerys to fall on this same trap.

She could almost _hear_ the tension in his shoulders when Jaime, knowing he would find no quarter with either of them, took a knee before the _khaleesi_ , green eyes alight with thinly-veiled indignation, to say a simple _please consider my thoughts, your grace,_ and just as quickly sweep off the cabin before anyone could reply.

In the end they sailed to Astapor: the course had already been set, the ship captain’s loyalty assured, Daenerys’s mind made, and the ship sailed smoothly and silently to the Slaver’s Bay. The thought of slaves still sent a frisson of disgust through Lyanna’s spine.

Yet she saw the sense in Mormont’s plan, even if she hated the idea herself. They had not enough coin to guarantee the loyalty of a sellsword company that could not be matched by a Westerosi lord, and she was loath to leave Daenerys vulnerable to whatever lords used her as figurehead. Slaves, on the other hand – she had heard enough about the Unsullied’s capacity for violence and their unwavering loyalty.

Yes, they needed Unsullied, they needed an army – and they would get it.

It was only later that night that her guilt, good old friend that it was, came back. Yes, they would buy Unsullied; they would go to Westeros with a loyal army or not at all.  She could hear her father’s voice clear as day, _you have shamed us have you no honor?_ She supposed her father would be saying that quite a lot these days, had he survived her brother, her Brandon’s, folly.

(She still dreamed of Brandon’s arms around her. She loved Ned, though they grew apart, and she loved Benjen perhaps best of all, because her father would not, not as much, but Brandon’s arms around her always calmed her, always soothed her. They were the first warmth she remembered other than her mother’s embrace.

And perhaps she truly had no honor, not anymore. Perhaps she’d never had it. Perhaps she did not want it, that kind of honor that was little more than _duty_ and following other’s opinions and orders.)

Yet there on her own small cabin was the Lysene boy that was thoughtlessly gifted to her by Illyrio Mopatis, the same Illyrio who gave them means to fund an army, whether he intended it as such or not. The boy with the golden hair so pale it felt silver under the light and that she, fool that she was, started to love as a son, not that she had any choice on the matter.

Lyanna’s loves were sudden and absolute, much like storms. This was no different.

“Aryon,” she smiled, brushed her fingers through his hair, as was her habit. It was so fine it slipped through her fingers like down. “Milady,” he mumbled sleepily and leaned into her touch, as he often did. She suspected he was not used to touch, at least not a kind one. The thought broke her heart.

The first thing to go when she took him with them was the bronze collar. The skin on his neck was no longer chafed and red, as it was during their trip to Qarth, but he still had a faint pale band on his neck, where the skin had not tanned as the rest and was clear and sharp. He was a slim but soft boy, so unlike the young Dothraki of Daenerys’s _khalasar_ , but he’d been learning with them, spending his hours away from her with them. She was happy with that; he needed real friends, and as he was no one’s, he might as well be theirs.

She could not erase his past as a slave, but she could and would give him his freedom.

“Boy,” she said, sitting on the bed provided to her, patting her side. “Tell me child, what do you remember of your time with the slavers?”

He quailed; she soothed his tension, wrapping an arm around him.

He told her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the bright side, Jaime's probably next. Or not.


	28. Astapor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Unsullied, and Daenerys and Jaime have a chat.

It was hot enough in the plaza that Jaime felt much like Lord Rickard must have in his final hours, but still he shivered at the sight of the slaves.

The slaver had marched a thousand Unsullied for their inspection, draped in loincloths and spiked helms and nothing else. There they stood, untroubled by the heat so heavy that the air wavered around them as if through mist, a thousand men, if you could call them men, untroubled by anything at all, eyes distant and unseeing in the manner of – actually, in the manner of statues. He’d met eunuchs before; he’d shared a home with Varys at the Red Keep for as long as he dwelt there but these eunuchs were nothing like the soft, sweet-spoken Spider.

These men were lean and hard and strong as any warrior, any Westerosi knight, and Jaime felt a spike of horrified fascination go through him, in spite of himself.

Daenerys spoke with the slaver, as was her due, through a petite slave girl that could be no older than ten. They had left Mormont and the she-wolf behind; she trusted them to keep her dragons safe. She did not trust Jaime so much, but nobody did but Cersei, and Cersei was far away, safe in her princely viper’s den.

They went down the rows of slaves, men, if men they could be named, of different shapes and sizes. Jaime knew what a warrior was like; he was a knight and a Lannister, he’d seen war once and sat out another (against his will, but so be it; he still got his kill, did he not?), and he was Lord Tywin Lannister’s son. One did not grow in Casterly Rock without knowing of war and death, power and weakness.

He did not know what these… _things_ were. With men, you could harass, you could tempt and you could bribe. Know a man’s weakness and you can down him like cattle.

Not so with these, he suspected. There was no weakness, no will that did not stem from their masters, it did not seem, and that was a frightening thought. He heard the slaver and Dany talk with only half an ear; he was busy watching the slaves, file and rank after file and rank.

_They know no fear._

“Every man knows fear,” he scoffed in spite of himself. Once he would have said he was fearless. He was no longer a fool of two and ten. He stood by Cersei’s side when she birthed Joffrey, and he had never been so afraid as he was then, afraid she was going to bleed to death before his eyes. She hadn’t, but the fear was there, repeated with every child she birthed.

The translator girl’s words were simple, and they echoed his thoughts. _They are not men. Death is meaningless to them, as is maiming._

It must be; they had been maimed already, had they not? Maimed in bodies and, he suspected, looking into their eyes, in their minds and souls as well. The slaver took to demonstrate just how fearless his merchandise were by whipping a slave in the face in such a manner no man would have withstood without retaliation, before Dany’s and Jaime’s eyes, and then –

Jaime was not squeamish. He saw far worse than most, on the battlefield and elsewhere. He’d done worse: he’d cut men down as if they were nothing. He’d lived with the Hound, who’d gone to Casterly Rock as a boy already burned and full of rage. He stood by as the king ruthlessly raped Queen Rhaella. He watched as Lord Rickard and Brandon Stark were slaughtered. He watched people burn.

He slashed a king’s throat as he would’ve a pig’s, as the king squealed and shat himself and called for help with no dignity, no fight at all, a dragon no more dignified than a mewling babe.

He pushed a small child out of a window without even thinking.

As the slaver began to saw out the boy’s nipple – for it was a boy, little older than his eldest – for no reason other than to make a point to a potential buyer, Jaime did not look away. He stared and he did not move. His face was calm and neutral as ever.

His mind was something else altogether. He might look; he did not have to _see_.

The slave made no move, not even a sound, and that chilled him anew, in a manner that had nothing to do with the slave girls following them with shade and fans.

 _They feel no pain,_ the slaver said. They played a game here, as they played their entire lives, and he heard the insults he directed to Dany and saw her smile vacantly in return. That, too, much as the slaves, was Mormont’s idea. That, too, much as the slaves, Jaime hated quite a bit.

A slaver and he treated Dany as if she was nothing but an upstart foreigner. Which he supposed she _was_ , but it chafed, and more than once he felt the instinctive tug on his arm toward the sword hilt, the need to silence this man who had no right –

 _Wine of courage,_ he heard and did not quite listen, though his mind latched on that tidbit and hid it away somewhere within. _That at least would be useful._ He had his share of scars, none too great or too damaging; not even Jaime Lannister go through war unscathed. The remembrance of pain made him flinch – inwardly – in sympathy of the gaping hole in the slave’s chest, where his nipple once was. It fell there, wet and pink, a scrap of flesh and nothing else, no more relevant than the slave himself to his master’s eye.

 _We remove the penis as well, leaving nothing,_ _the purest creatures._

“It is,” he answered at the slaver’s inquiry on reflex, in the common tongue and tried not to flinch at the thought. “The Kingsguard, the Night’s Watch, septons and septas of the Faith, the silent sisters, the maesters of the Citadel…” _and very few uphold these vows, finding excuses and holes in the wording, following the letter if not the spirit of it._

He was one of those, of course. He no more upheld his Kingsguard’s vow of celibacy than he did his vow to protect the innocent. In the greater scheme of things, he thought the former was of less worth than the latter, and, he supposed that for someone with no honor he _was_ more faithful than most men. Eddard Stark sneered at his lack of honor, but _he_ sired a bastard on some forgotten camp follower (or, if one believed the rumors, on a highborn maid; Ashara Dayne, no less), whereas Jaime never even had a woman that was not Cersei. Never needed or wanted to.

 _Men were not born to live such lives._ He supposed that was true, though he never felt the temptation himself. “There are other ways to tempt a man,” he shrugged, once the translation was done.

“Not Unsullied.”

He saw Dany flinch at the thought of them having no names, but he understood that as well. No name, no pride, no family, no children or heritage to fight for, not even the chance of it: their only sense of purpose was on their master. _Unsullied,_ indeed: they had nothing to stain their duty.

 _Slay infants, slay dogs they grew to care for…_ every word spoken made his revulsion grow, his stomach clench tighter in disgust, though he knew nothing would show to the world. He was not squeamish. He had done terrible things. But this was – this was a level of perversity that even Jaime Lannister could abide.

Yet against his own better self he could see the logic in their training. One did not grow in Tywin Lannister’s domain without staring unflinchingly in the face of reality as it was: cold, friendless and cruel. He had, after all, seen what was done to Elia Martell and her children. He knew better than to think his father sent _Gregor Clegane_ of all people expecting anything less than what happened.

(He would never say this aloud, and would deny it or stay silent if asked, but Jaime felt a lot better knowing Gregor Clegane was dead.)

They did not breed people; they bred soldiers, unflinching killing beasts that would never balk and never cower and had no reason to live and no meaning that was not their existence.

Even the Dothraki had their codes, their mores, their culture; he’d been locked in a ship with them long enough to see as much. They feared the salt water and they had pride in their horses, however unsentimental they were. They had friendship and love among each other. They were savages, barbarians, but they were _people_.

He was not entirely sure these Unsullied could claim as much.

He thought those things as he followed Dany on foot down the streets of Astapor, watching the descendants of Old Ghis ride past in their copper armors and linens and ridiculous hair styles. The streets were deserted, covered in red dust that ground into his skin more than he wished. He watched as men led naked slaves, simple people in different shapes and colors, but all with the same empty look in their eyes. Slaves and slavers, like most of this damned bay.

Jaime was not a great believer in the gods; their traditions and rituals were ground into him, same as the red dust, rather than taken in faith or sincerity; but still he could see why these people were considered barbaric, why they forbade this abomination to happen in Westeros.

_Yet, is it any different from the life of your smallfolk?_

_It is,_ he thought, thinking of King’s Landing and Casterly Rock and Lannisport. _It is. It has to be._

He tried not to think of the crofter’s girl, of Tyrion, or what his father did to her.

The princess beside him was deep in thought, silent through their tedious walk back to the Balerion. He did not blame her; he was in no mood to speak, either. What he had to say he said already and if she’d summarily ignored his arguments, well, that was no fault of his.

(He did smile when she slapped Mormont, though. He deserved it, the bastard.)

She wished to be alone, he sensed, so he left her alone for as long as she desired. He did not feel particularly social, either. When dusk fell he had no wish to sleep, no more than she, and found her watching the sea and the colors and lights of Astapor. He was not sure he _could_ sleep, with those thoughts in his mind, such thoughts not even the memories of Cersei could erase.

“My brother Viserys would have bought them,” she said, he was not sure whether to him or the world at large or the rippling sea. In the dusk everything felt gray, unreal. He leaned on the railing beside her.

“Your brother Viserys is dead,” he pointed out.

“Jorah once said I was like Rhaegar, though,” she said. Her pale fingers clutched the rail tight enough her knuckles went white. “And he fought with free men by his side, not slaves. Men died under the dragon banner, free men who believed in his cause, not bought men...”

It was easy to believe oneself as a hero born from songs. She wasn’t, though; she was just a girl.

“Rhaegar is dead too,” he felt compelled to point out again. “Any man can be bought, Your Grace, for the right price. Do not believe your brother’s armies fought for honor and glory and love alone, though many might have and though that might be part of it. They fought for favor and they fought for power and they fought for fear,” she looked at him then, those purple eyes of her bright in the moonlight and it was not Rhaegar who he saw, but Rhaella, the oft-forgotten Targaryen. “Fear of what Robert’s armies would do to them, should they win, or what Aerys might do to them, should _he_ win. They all knew what your father did to Lord Rickard, and Lord Rickard was faithful until your brother stole his daughter, ” he paused. “Some fought for love,” he remembered Jon Connington’s grief at losing the Battle of the Bells; it was not just fear of retribution that moved him then, or at all. “Some fought loyally and nobly. But not all, and I doubt even most. Most fought because they had no choice, the soldiers, or for power and favor, the lords.”

He thought of his father, the way he put King's Landing to the sword, almost, to make a point.

He thought of the woman hiding in the ship’s bowel, tending to dragons and horses and, no doubt, conversing with the Dothraki women she seemed to love so much. She had avoided him all day and, in fact, avoided him since Qarth. It should have bothered him, but didn’t. She  _had_ put a dagger to his throat; her point was made. He was useful, but only just; she would kill him if she must. He could not say he did not approve.

“In the end, dead is dead…”

She was silent, musing on those things; the wind picked her silver hair, wisps of it, and the Dothraki bell on her braid tinkled softly, annoyingly so. She was nothing like Rhaegar, whatever Mormont said; Mormont did not know Rhaegar. Jaime did, somewhat, though he supposed no one living knew the silver bastard more than Lady Stark.

“I protected you before you were born, you know,” he said apropos of nothing. _She is only a little older than Joffrey._  He could not quite imagine Joffrey Martell ruling the content of his own breeches, let alone pondering war against the Seven Kingdoms. “When I was raised to the Kingsguard, my first order was to go back and protect your mother and Viserys. I was so angry; I wanted to compete in Harrenhal. I was five and ten and so honored; I thought the king had seen my value. It was my sister’s idea, that I join the Kingsguard.”

She was watching him now, listening, Astapor forgotten; she was always avid for knowledge of her family, her unlived past. In the night she felt even slighter and smaller than she was during the day, just a wisp of a girl. He wondered, not for the first time, what would have happened if he did stay for Lord Whent’s tourney; most likely nothing would have changed.

“Viserys was such a sweet boy then, if a little bloodthirsty, but then, so are many young boys. I saw your mother to the docks, the day she sailed to Dragonstone with you on her belly. Such a lovely woman, Rhaella.”

On impulse, he slid closer to her; she felt warm even in the night, warmer than the night itself, in fact, and he thought about those stories about the Targaryens, that they had fire in their blood. Just stories, so many died in fire, but still, it was a fanciful thought. They did not touch, but he could feel the heat of her small body by his side. He could feel her sorrow like a physical presence. He wondered if she missed her mother, or the idea of a mother; his had died when he was nine, but still sometimes he dreamed of her, a golden-haired woman that was a lot like Cersei, but not quite.

“You are neither Viserys nor Rhaegar,” he said. “I don’t care what Mormont says. He’s full of shit anyway,” he shrugged at the dirty look she shot him; it was the truth, whether she liked it or not. “You are Daenerys. You’re alive. They are not. Whatever decision you come to, you come to it on your name and your will, not theirs.”

It _was_ her choice; she might try to emulate whomever, but ultimately her victories and her losses would be hers, not theirs, and the world would place the flaws and glories on her shoulders, not theirs.

“Eight thousand babes, dead,” she said, quietly, so quietly he almost did not hear her over the waves.

“And many more to die, for as long as there are Unsullied,” he agreed. “There will be more; soldiers like those must be in high demand.”

“I hate it,” she whispered, the fierce little girl who wished to be a queen, looking at him with her wide, tragic eyes. This time he brushed a hand over the bare skin of her back, on a whim, in an aborted attempt at comfort. He understood; he’d hated the sight of little Aegon and Rhaenys, too.

But such was war.

“You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” he said, not unkindly.

“Should I, then? Should I buy them? Unsullied. They feel no pain, they have no names…”

“Slaves, yes, to follow your orders, kill who you bid them to.”

“I need an army,” she said, looking and sounding pained.

“You do, if you want that iron chair. It’s mighty uncomfortable, though; I should know.”

Behind him he could _feel_ Mormont’s glare. It made him smile, but only inside. He had been watching, ever since he approached Dany. He was always watching, Jaime knew; whatever he feared he was not sure of, but the Bear of the North did not like at all, much less when he was near his precious Daenerys.

“ _Khaleesi,_ ” he said, a name he rarely used; it was meaningless to him. “Decide as you must, but know this: war is not pretty. Before the end, many will die. At least Unsullied won’t rape the women and won’t kill those you do not bid them to kill.”

“I thought you hated the thought of slaves,” she said. He had not noticed her draw even closer, had not noticed the drop in his own voice; the moon highlighted the silver in her hair in such a way, and made the shadow beneath her eyes deeper, darker, more like her mother than ever. Mormont’s glare intensified, sharp as a sword.

“I do,” he sighed. “As I hate the thought of many things. Sometimes…” he thought on how he could put it to her. “Sometimes you need to do things you don’t agree with, don’t like,” _like watch the girl’s mother scream as she was raped,_ “things that hurt, things that would break you,” _like watch the man you swore to serve boil innocent men alive,_ “That’s when you go away inside, far away. You let the body and the mind act but you don’t feel; you just do what you must, and keep yourself, your _true_ self, far away.”

He had. He would again, of that he had no doubt.

It saddened him, that she must; but she was the one with queenly ambitions, not him.

They parted as they met, in silence. She went back to her cabin, all the more thoughtful, and he stayed, watching the lights of Astapor. Beyond, he could hear the faint thrum of music, soothing, but faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is my longest chapter thus far o_o Jaime apparently had a lot to say.  
> Some bits are from A Storm of Swords, all the kudos to GRRM for that!


	29. Astapor II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lyanna and Jaime meet again on a ship's deck.

It was almost daybreak, and the lights of Astapor were finally beginning to dim. She did not know what sort of vigil they had, but they must have had something – she could hear, if she strained, the faint murmur of music, even as far as the port, so soft as if in a dream. Sometimes, Lyanna thought she might as well be in a dream; it felt so absurd, that she would be on a ship with Rhaegar’s sister and actual living dragons.

Even though she had not gone to the city, staying back with the dragons and the Dothraki, she felt uneasy, probably picked up from Daenerys. One need not be a genius to see she was not well; something had happened with the slavers, something that broke through her composure. She knew not what; she had not asked, either. She was only too glad – selfishly so – that she had no need to deal with the slavers herself.

In any case, if the _khaleesi_ wanted to talk, or needed her opinion, well, she was never shy about asking.

So she’d stayed and conversed with the Dothraki women and children, as was her usual when the _khaleesi_ did not need her, preferring to convene with Jaime and Mormont. The Dothraki were such a fascinating people, and so close to her own heart: they fought, they lived and they tended their horses, even the women, and they died in the wild beneath the open sky. Oh, their practices were strange, some of their superstitions absurd, some of their traditions barbaric (they kept slaves, she knew, and killed and raped and plundered) but nonetheless, they were not quite the monsters she’d learned about on her maester’s knee, at least not within the confines of the _khalasar_. She could well see how Daenerys thrived in their freedom.

Against her better sense she longed for the day they were back on land, when she could ride again and be free from this endless game of waiting and shuffling about. She was never a very patient woman; it was one of the many reasons the Red Keep nearly killed her.

Now, however, under the Essosi sky, she could near taste it again, something she’d scented in Westeros on their journey north and almost grasped in Pentos, that taste of freedom. Maybe after this was done she would return, this time alone. Go to Braavos and learn the art of water dancing, maybe, or become a courtesan, maybe, and forget Lyanna Stark ever existed.

It made her smile; it was an impossible dream, but dreams were always impossible, anyway, or far less exciting than one might think. And when reality imposed itself on dreams, well, she knew what happened then. People died, men burned, children were born and raised as bastards, forgotten, and Targaryens were exiled.

So lost in thought she was, that she never even noticed him, not until she was almost upon him – and the sight was so absurd it made her blink and look again.

The image didn’t change, how odd.

He was sprawled on the floor, leaning on the ship’s mast, legs straight before him. At first she thought he was asleep, but why would he be asleep right there, in sight of everyone?

Not that there was anyone; it was too early, or too late, they were in port and the weather was calm. It was a good time for crew and passengers to rest.

Except, it seemed, the two of them.

As always.

He did not answer her, or move, or do anything at all. She was not sure he had even noticed her, he who was usually so alert. It was only then that she saw the flagon to the side, discarded and, she did not have to look, quite empty, and that made her worry all the more, and now that she knew it, she could feel the scent of wine around him. It was a scent she knew well enough to not even register it anymore; she’d felt it far too often in Robert, so much it was natural, part of his usual musk.

It was not something she would’ve associated with Jaime at all. She’d never known him to drink – he never did, not in her presence, anyway, nothing beyond what was expected at meals, and she rather doubted he did so even when he was off duty.

In fact, if Jaime Lannister had any vices she knew nothing of it. He did not whore, he did not drink; he did not gamble, either, and he did not seem fond of feasts and hunts as Robert was, or other such amusements. He fought, well and frequently, attended tourneys as any knight and won them often enough, but he did not seem to live for such things, as that Tyrell boy did.

_Like Rhaegar, but even Rhaegar had his books, his prophecy and his silver-stringed harp._

As if she needed any more similarities between the past and the present.

_What is his weakness?_

She hated herself a little more for even thinking such a thing, hated all the worse because she knew the answer to her own question and knew that, if necessary, she would use that knowledge without a second thought.

_His family, his honor, dinted though it was. His twin most of all._

_Gods, what am I becoming?_

Her fingers found the side of his face, brushing the hair back.

She never knew whether it was the sway of the ship or the hand that clamped on her wrist, her own traitorous body or a combination of all those things but somehow she ended sprawled –

Green eyes met hers, expressionless and glazed over with drink. One hand was still on her wrist; the other had moved to her waist, to stabilize her, apparently on reflex. It felt warm. He didn’t seem to notice it anymore than he’d noticed her before.

She did. Oh, did she ever.

The hand on her wrist came up to brush at her cheek, much as hers had. The touch was soft, just the brush of knuckles on her skin, enough to make her shiver. She thought of that night in the godswood what felt like a thousand years ago. She’d shied away then, startled and wary of being touched by men at all, much less Jaime Lannister.

She didn’t shy away now. His skin felt rough against hers, but so gentle, whisper-soft.

Desire hit her like a mailed fist.

Still he stared, and it surprised her to see such a look in his eyes, because the look in them was so much like Tyrion’s, that solemn look his brother sometimes had when he was thoughtful, it almost hurt, but he blinked, his eyes darted down, and for the first time in months, hells, the first time in _years_ , not since she was wedded to Robert, she was conscious of herself, skin flushed hot with shame – it mixed not well with the desire he surely felt wafting from her in waves, shameless and wanton, which, of course, only deepened her shame.

Dothraki vest, horsehair breeches, dark hair braided, sword at her side – little more than a man, her breasts hidden under the rough leather. She’d adopted Dothraki garb ever since Qarth, or her own breeches and tunics from Pentos; she hadn’t worn a dress since their arrival in Illyrio Mopatis’s manse. The Westerosi gowns, even her summer silks, were too heavy for Essos, and the Essosi styles did not agree with her, too light, too airy. She’d felt more at home in masculine garb.

His gaze drew down, lower.  Slid off the line of her throat, to her waist, to her legs. She felt it crawl, idle, unhurried, over her arms, which had flailed uselessly, her palms spread, one on the mast behind him and the deck below them.

 _Graceless._ She had never truly been graceful outside of the saddle. Oh, she could dance, and she was passable with a sword, after his careful tutelage, but sprawled over his lap like a common whore –

The scent of wine and male animal, it felt strong even after being cooped up with the Dothraki belowdeck, stronger because it was _him_ , and she made to stand, to right herself and put some distance between them, to go _back_ but his eyes slid back, retraced their path and up to rest on her lips and whatever thought she had to move abandoned her without so much as a by your leave.

_He’s going to kiss me._

The thought came up, popped and fizzed away; her heart beat hard, both from the fall and the watch, and seemed to still altogether in waiting.

She’d been beautiful as a maid of four and ten, or so they said, even Robert, but she was no longer a maid of four and ten and whatever beauty she had – beauty such as any noble child has – was spent long before it.

(She remembered shame, when she was wedded to Robert, shame for the fat that still lingered around her middle after Jon’s birth, shame for the silver lines from her pregnant belly, shame for the sagging softness of her breasts.

Robert had stared at her, stared and stared and she’d felt like crying, for herself and for Rhaegar and for the entire damn mess that left her there, naked and shivering before a stranger who’d fought a war for her sake, for everyone’s sakes, her father’s and Brandon’s and her own.

Yet he just said _my, Lyanna, you are even more beautiful than I thought,_ and she’d smiled and blushed and believed him not at all, but she was thankful nonetheless, for this small kindness if nothing else.)

There was a small dent in his nose, she noted irrelevantly, where it’d been broken. His beard was growing long, unkempt, and there was red dust on his skin, even there, and sweat, and he was –

She saw herself in her mind’s eye: mannish, too tall for a woman and not enough for a man, more muscle than feminine softness, not enough muscle to be effective in any man’s pursuits, narrow hips, no waist to speak of, horsefaced Lyanna Stark with her dead gray eyes and her braid and her stupid, _stupid_ blush that ran from her hairline to down and under her vest –

He fisted a hand on her braid; she stopped breathing.

“It’s too damn hot in this place. And it stinks. Dust gets everywhere. Even up my arse, I bet.”

She blinked. Whatever she was expecting, it certainly wasn’t _that_ hissed through clenched teeth.

“I should have joined the Night’s Watch,” he said with a sigh, and it was such an odd thing to say _then_ that she could not help it: she laughed, laughed so hard she lost her balance and had to hold on to his shoulder so she wouldn’t roll out of his lap in an even _more_ graceless sprawl, laughed even though it wasn’t really that funny at all, and then he was laughing too, laughing so much he was hacking coughs all over her face, which wasn’t chivalrous at _all_ and he stank of wine, and if it was all a little hysterical, well, so what? They were halfway across the world in a stupid ship in Slaver’s Bay with a child queen and her three dragons and if that wasn’t absurd enough, well, how worse could it be?

(A lot, in fact. She should know better than tempt fate.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just out of curiosity and for fun, if you had to cast Lyanna - who would you cast? What does she look like to you?  
> Oh, and updates will probably slow. Not only the story's getting complicated, which requires actual thought, I've started cello classes and also work, so, time's scant. But I have no intention of stopping!


	30. Winterfell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet the Starks again.

Sansa Stark was afraid.

It started with her father’s death and the speculation around it: that Robb had killed him, that Theon did it in the night, that it was the Boltons, that it was the Freys, that it was Brandon’s vengeful ghost, that it was a faceless man, a sorrowful man, a shadow man brought from the pits of the seven hells.

The truth was that Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, Sansa’s father, was found dead at the Twins, throat slashed from side to side; and no one knew what or how it happened. Robb had taken over the command of the troops, as his heir, but Robb was not Eddard Stark.

The truth was that when the raven came, Catelyn Stark cried herself to sleep and Sansa, Bran, Arya and Rickon huddled with her in the large and empty bed that had never felt so cold.

It was less than a week after that Catelyn decided to go south and meet her son, to advise him and help him. He had the love of the north, being a Stark, but his actions against his father’s justice were not well seen and command, already flaky for a war they had no part in, began to wane.

Sansa watched her party ride south, ride beyond the walls, and never felt so alone.

She’d always wanted to be the lady of a great household, a great castle like Winterfell; it was what she was bred and raised for. She’d longed for it, and dreamed of it, and waited for that moment ever so eagerly. Even then, she dreamed of the day she was to be wed, to be given her own home and her own life, her own household and her own children.

(It never occurred to her that she was bred and raised like a horse or hunting dog.)

Yet now that she had the chance, a girl of three and ten, she felt only terror, none of the thrill she’d thought she would feel.

Oh, she was not alone – she had Maester Luwin and Old Nan and enough servants to help her, but still, watching as her mother disappeared in the distance just as her father and Robb did …

No. She was not going to think of that.

“What are we going to do now, Lady?” she asked the direwolf pup by her side – she’d grown, quite a bit, but she was the sweetest of the pack, had always been, and always a comfort to Sansa. She could almost imagine what the direwolf would say (in her mind the wolf had her very own voice, which resembled Jeyne Poole’s, but not quite);  _we stand and fight_.

Bran was the Lord of Winterfell in his brother’s absence, but he was young and unmarried and without his legs to boot, so it was Sansa’s task to see to the household as her lady mother did. As time passed and days became weeks became months, her terror had diminished, though it never went away.

So she stood in the courtyard with Lady by her side and Bran on his special saddle flanked by Summer and Rickon scrubbed clean clutching Shaggydog’s neck, as they welcomed Jojen and Meera Reed, and for the first time felt like a Lady of Winterfell.

Meera and Jojen were children of her father’s dearest and oldest friend other than King Robert, Howland Reed, the man who’d gone with her father to rescue Aunt Lyanna, and seeing them speak in their father’s name brought tears to Sansa’s eyes and for the first time in her young life, she’d felt a Stark.

She’d often dreamed of going south, of princes and knights and ladies fair. She, as most her siblings, inherited the Tully looks; she was more her mother’s daughter than even Robb, Bran or Rickon; but she’d seen court, she’d seen young Prince Joffrey, a Martell with Lannister looks (and, if she was honest with herself, Lannister cruelty thinly veiled and cowed by his father’s watchful eyes), she’d seen the pain in Aunt Lyanna’s eyes and Robert’s drunken boisterousness, and she’d learned more than she’d ever thought she would. It was King's Landing who first taught her that life was not a song, and she’d had such longing in her eyes that it broke Sansa’s heart.

Her father went south to fight Stannis’s war and did not come back.

That made her wary.

Jojen was sweet and quiet and Meera a match for Arya’s own wildness, and life resumed, quiet as ever, Bran in their father’s seat, Sansa by his side as her mother would, and they waited. Every day she climbed to the maester’s tower and every day she watched for ravens, for words, for information.

So when Jojen came to her – not Bran, her – and told her he’d dreamed of the sea washing over Winterfell, she gentled his fears even though her own rose and swelled as an unborn child inside of her.

When the Ironborn invaded Deepwood Motte and several other small towns in the north, she told herself they were safe in Winterfell, that Robb would come back, as would their garrison that split and left to reconquer and protect those places.

The northern forces were scattered, she knew from mother’s last letter; they were marching north, to the Wall. Robb had decided to abandon the southron cause, which had no hope, and go forth and make his own – help their bastard half-brother, lest they all came to die from the wildlings and worse things that existed beyond. He would send the people he could spare, but the northern alliance had splintered with their father’s death, and the faithless son had no way to hold them together.

She’d wanted to scream, to hear Robb referred to as  _faithless_  when his only crime was to love.

She could only hope Theon was safe and not one of those stealing their lands and reaving across their shores. That his life was worth the weight of her brother’s honor.

And when the Boltons came in the night and scaled their walls and invaded their home, butchered their garrisons and stole what was theirs, it was Sansa – strangely enough, she would’ve expected Arya – who kept her mind and sent Bran, Rickon and Arya away with Jojen and Meera Reed, with Osha and Hodor, away with their direwolves. Some were wounded ( _Lady,_  she cried in the night,  _my Lady_ ). Nymeria had been lost on their journey south, due to Cersei Lannister’s wrath; it was just Sansa’s luck that Oberyn Martell stopped her before she could claim Lady as well. Arya had never forgiven her that.

Arya had never forgiven her quite a bit, come to think of it, but still they huddled together and embraced and shed tears as they left through a passage in the crypts, heading north to Jon and Robb and their lady mother, somewhere safe. Arya, because she was Jon’s favorite, because she was so young, Bran, because he was Robb’s heir, Rickon, as Bran’s heir, the baby, their wolf pup, who needed their mother and safety the most.

It was Sansa who hid in the crypts, alone, because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell; it was Sansa who vowed to find a way, to save their household for as long as she could as the Lady of Winterfell, huddling with Lady, the gentlest direwolf but still the one who’d slayed the men trying to hold her back, trying to –

_Don’t think of that._

It was Sansa who was eventually found and dragged by the hair before the Bastard of Bolton, dirty, bloodstained and terrified.

And, in the end, it was Sansa’s fears that were justified, and it was Sansa Stark who learned the true meaning of pain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sansa, my dear, my darling child, I am so, so sorry.


	31. Astapor III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a city is razed.

Astapor burned.

It was the smell, she thought. Not the smoke, not the screams, not the sight of the slaver’s eyes melting from his face like jelly; it was the smell that got to her and made her eyes water, the small of roasting meat that was all too familiar and her body’s horrifying reaction to it, the hunger, ah, the overwhelming smell of it. The dragons spun overhead, shadows only, diving like hunting hawks and seizing their prey, burning them, burning everything.

She sat on the mare given to her, the sweet dappled gray one, steadied the reins in her hands, brushed her fingers through the darker, iron-gray mane and wondered not for the first time  _am I mad? Is this right?_

And how could she know? She had never been to war, never  _saw_  it as she did then, because while this felt like a massacre, she had no doubt it would become a war. Her time as a queen was peacetime, bar the Greyjoys, and there were few men more knowledgeable in war than Robert Baratheon; she’d spent both conflicts, the Greyjoy and Robert’s, in isolation, sequestered outside of harm’s way.

_Is this how it was, when my father burned, in his trial by battle? Was this the smell of his slowly cooked flesh, caught trapped in his armor, the one he wore to defend my honor? Did it make King Aerys hunger?_

_What honor?_

Jaime would know. He’d been there, he watched her sire roasted and her brother strangled.

_Avenged them better than Ned, better than Robert, ever could._

Jaime who sat on his saddle, upon his great golden stallion, unmovable and untroubled, as Astapor burned and people screamed and the Unsullied slayed their way through the city’s nobles. The fire shone in his mail, haloed him in golden light. It was near sunset, and the world, once again, shone red and gold and purple like a bruise.

_They were going to burn King’s Landing,_  he’d said. He’d slayed the Targaryen king for that, for the people who never hailed him as the hero he  _was_.

_And I brought him half across the world and made him watch the Targaryen princess burn Astapor._

He smiled, she saw. He smiled, faint, thoughtful, but nonetheless a smile, as he watched them burn, and somehow that chilled her, that smile; it was not cruel, it was not even a smirk, just a harmless quirk of the lips as beautiful as he was. She led her mare closer to his side, to brush a hand on his arm with a murmured  _Jaime?_

His eyes were not there, they were not there at all: the fire lit them like wildfire, such green she’d only read about. He did not say a word, did not move and did not acknowledge her at all.

(But when the fires began to die, even as they watched the slaver city burn, she felt his hand rest just above her knee, squeeze, and let go.)

The slaves marched out, led by Unsullied, terrified, no doubt, about this sudden change of events. Daenerys Targaryen, small and lovely upon her silver mare, smiled as she saw them, women, children, men, with soot on their faces and fear in their eyes.  _This_  smile was contented, even sweet, when her people marched out of the ruins of what was once Astapor, caught unprepared as a hare in the woods.

_Daenerys Stormborn, the breaker of chains. Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name._

Was there any price worth the freedom of men?

The screams died just as the day did, and the Unsullied returned to the plaza, rank by rank, file by file, centurion by centurion. There were no losses among them, nothing significant: the few costumed warriors within Astapor stood no chance against the might of their own slave horde. There were wounds, however, and people to feed, and plunder they had taken to feed them, plunder that would have to be sold and traded in time. They had the three ships still, and the cargo, and the remains of her  _khalasar_.

She wheeled her mare around, patting her neck to calm her, murmuring soothing words even as the dragons flew back, obedient as ever, Daenerys’s children.

She caught up with the  _khaleesi_  and Mormont, who spoke to her in whispers, and slid to her left flank, silent as a ghost, dappled and silver mares keeping pace easily. There was pride and wonder in his eyes, she saw. She’d singlehandedly brought down Astapor and freed their people, the people who were now  _her_  people, and who, he argued, she had nothing to feed or care, useless people, women and children and babes in arms, old men and women, worthless.

It made her smile when Daenerys said,  _my people._

Yes, they were hers. The cost was well paid: she had their hearts and their loyalty, their love and their minds, their arms and their bodies, for as long as she wished. Few took the opportunity to leave, how could they? Even the Unsullied, their spears hitting the ground in rhythmic marching pace, once slaves, now free, even they would follow her to the ends of the earth and beyond, as her  _khalasar_ did.

That night outside of Astapor, they met once again in the tent brought for the  _khaleesi_ , a tent little bigger than the rest. The freedmen made their own shelters, makeshift and improvised as they were, with the few possessions they managed to plunder.

There was song outside, as there was the first night, but it was a different sort of song, the song of people breaking bread, making food, making shelter, and mothers and children laughing, the drunken – however drunk they could get, without resources – songs of elated men, punctuated with the occasional moan of those who were hurt in the process.

_Mother of dragons, breaker of chains… Daenerys Stormborn, Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name…_

It was stifling hot inside the tent, hotter even than outside, even though the fires still burned and shot the night with red – red and black, Targaryen colors now. It felt appropriate. The dragons curled around each other like dogs, so fragile and inoffensive on the ground, near ungainly.

“We march to Yunkai,” she said and it was not a question.

And as it was not a question, so they did.

Morning saw Astapor empty and forgotten, smoking gently into the purple skies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a tiny little bridge.


	32. All men must die (but please, not yet)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we meet Jon Snow, rather briefly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guess who's not dead?! Apparently not one of our main players, whoops. I'm so very sorry for such despicable hiatus, but I've been busy with work and cello playing as well as a potential book of mine own, among other things. However, I have at least three chapters on the works and a good idea what I want to happen in the short term, so there's that!

Jon Snow was going to die.

He was going to die and perhaps it was sad that, for one so young, the thought of a quick death in battle was a relief. He’d join Ygritte, he thought, or with the trees and the rocks and the birds in the sky. Maybe he would join with Ghost and disappear in the world, eat the fish and the elk and the deer and never have cause to freeze and hunger again, the way it was said skinchangers could. He’d fight and he’d fuck and father strong pups and feed his offspring and die a quiet life in the woods, completely free, free in a way his human self never would.

It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to die. Certainly he was no suicide – if he was, the Wall was high enough for him to have a quick end.

Yet he knew without a shadow of doubt that he was not going to walk out of this alive. Mance’s army was large and desperate, and while the Watch was better trained, they did not have giants, mammoths, or even the numbers needed to hold back the tides, not after the Others, not after the cold and starvation and the things from beyond the Wall had got to them.

He knew that, knew that as well as he knew his own name. And yet he marched on.

 _Winter is coming,_ his father’s words said, as real and true as anything.

So he would go down fighting, but he was going down.

Maybe he would repair his honor, then. To die bravely rather than cowardly, shut in his father’s castle, hiding in his father’s shadow.

He would do his last stand and he would die by the sword, the way he lived, and that was what made him smile his feral smile and go on, frozen, hungry and in tatters, much as his brothers at the Wall, to meet Mance Rayder.

He never knew his mother, and that was his regret, but in the Wall it did not seem to matter so much. They were all brothers there, no difference between bastard and trueborn, highborn or low. He understood, he thought, why his father never named her. Lady Catelyn, for one, yes, but if he hurt to think of Ygritte lying dead somewhere at the foot of the Wall…

Yes, he could understand his father. The conflicted emotions, the pain of a love lost – and he thought there had been love; otherwise, why take the bastard in his own home? He could have shipped Jon to some minor lordling, like King Robert did with Edric Storm, or simply let him live a simple, anonymous life with the smallfolk, visiting him from time to time and little else. There would be no shame in that; most lords did so.

Lord Eddard was not most lords.

 _Father is dead,_ Robb’s raven said. Killed by a Frey in the night, or a Bolton, or, hell, by a wight, who knew? He was betrayed. _We killed them all._

They had, but Robb was not Eddard Stark and his actions before had waned whatever tenuous support their father could have had in their southron ambitions – funny, that was what they said about their grandfather. _He has southron ambitions._

Even though he never had. His father was a good man, and good men died.

He had not known that. He’d been with the wildlings at the time the letter came, but Maester Aemon kept it for him, hidden from prying eyes and anyone not the Lord Commander. By then, it was too late to do anything but mourn.

Maybe he would find his father in the afterlife, too.

And his brothers and Arya –

But it was better not to think of his siblings, not now, or else –

His brother was marching north, he knew, not to declare his independence – he was not that daft – but to liberate his home. There was word that Sansa was kept ransom by the Boltons. That the great bastard had married her, bedded her, and thus claimed her – and that there was not one thing that Robb could do but slay him in return.

He’d heard the stories. It took everything in him to not desert then, futile though it would have been. He’d already been a turncloak.

It had taken him longer still to not steal away from the Night’s Watch and go hunting for his brother, his best friend, _Robb,_ his one known living family, when his other siblings were scattered to the wind, or dead, or worse.

In the end, he did not and he could not; and he was going to the die on the Wall.

Maybe his second regret was not seeing his family again.

 _Envoy._ Damn Alliston Thorne and damn Janos Slynt and damn the whole lot of them. _Envoy._ Would that he stayed in that cave with Ygritte!

And as he knew he was to die, his only decision was whether to die with the wildlings or with the Night’s Watch.

It was harder than he thought. On one side there was Tormund welcoming him as a friend even after everything, on the other, Harma’s disgust, one, Tormund’s daughter Munda and Longspear Ryk just beginning their life together; other, Varamyr’s cold eyes, the shadowcat’s hunger plain to see mirrored in its master.

On and on he tallied, Mance’s mistrust and the child in Dalla’s belly, on and on –

The horn decided for him. A bloody great horn at that, black and livid and old and that made Jon’s breath freeze in his lungs and yet Mance was no fool and he knew what it meant, to blow that horn: the doom of them all, if it was what it was supposed to be, if it was what the legends and songs said it would be.

_Legends and songs, who are you, Jon Snow? Have you turned into Sansa?_

The decision was no decision at all.

Sansa who never liked him but was still his sister, still his blood, and now under Bolton’s rule – he thought of that, and thought of the wildlings beyond the Wall. Thought of them with their dog sleds and their ways, stealing the daughters of fishers and silversmiths, endangering the smallfolk. He thought of what the likes of them would do to a pretty girl as Sansa, a girl who never even held a knife.

So that was his decision that was no decision at all. Slay Mance and shatter the horn before he was killed. Go back and be slayed anyway by the likes of Allison Thorne, causing Tormund to blow the horn and leaving the realm unprotected.

Pick his side and lose anyway.

Jon Snow was sure he was going to die, even as his hand rested on the hilt of Longclaw. It felt comfortable in his palm, always had, even when his fingers were awkward and frozen and his thigh burned like a living flame had set within the muscle.

He was still sure of it when the horns started sounding – not the one before him, but outside.

Outside where they were even louder and more mournful, shadows drifting out of the cold, shadows on horses with the pale sunlight glinting out of armors and weapons and the soft footfall of horses on snow.

He went out to see wildlings scattered in every direction, to see the gleam on armor – not Others then – and it send a stone-cold chill down his spine, that sight, even as Longclaw hissed out of its scabbard at his hip. He smiled; it had started to snow, little more than a dusting, but it did add to the mood, so he thought.

Dalla’s pained moans were music. The sound of the battle singing around him was music. The music of blood, Winterfell’s master-at-arms once said, one he fell into rhythm with even through his own pain, indecision and whatever else.

It did not last long. The wildlings were fierce, they were strong, but they were disorganized and the panic swept over them like a storm, breaking them apart before they could even mount a defense.

He did not last long, either. Jon Snow woke from the battle fog lying on the snow, his body far too weak to move, after everything he put it through. He thought it was inevitable. He hoped Dalla’s child was born safe and healthy. He hoped Mance was alright and that the Wall would stay.

He doubted it did and that he was. He did not doubt the Wall.

He hoped his siblings were safe. And his mother, wherever - and whoever - she was. If she was even alive.

A shadow passed over his eyes, blurred and vaguely human. He smiled. Waited.


End file.
